Officials confirm nobody hurt after Bayshore parking structure collapse

GLENDALE, Wis. (CBS 58) -- A parking garage at Bayshore shopping center in Glendale partially collapsed on Thursday, Feb. 23.

North Shore Fire and Rescue Chief Robert Whitaker said about 12:15 p.m., sections of the third and fourth levels of the Silver Spring parking structure collapsed into the first floor.

People nearby at the time of the collapse said buildings shook from the force.

First responders radioed from the scene, "At this time what we have is a collapse between the first floor and the second floor of the entrance. We are in the process of evacuating all vehicles in the remaining floor of the structure."

Two cars were completely buried. The collapse also disabled the only access ramp to the upper levels, stranding more than 50 cars on the upper levels.

But there were no injuries.

Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy said, "We certainly dodged a bullet on this one."

A pile of snow was on the third floor when it collapsed. Authorities said they are not certain, but it is likely the heavy snow played a role in the incident.

The area was taped off immediately after it happened, and no one was allowed to enter or leave surrounding buildings.

At first rescue crews were unsure if anyone was buried under the mountain of concrete and snow, but the first piece of good news came in the early afternoon. A review of security video led authorities to believe no one was in the cars that were buried, and no pedestrians were nearby at the time of the collapse.

North Shore Fire and Rescue Chief Robert Whitaker said, "We feel, based on that video, and also talking to the owner of the two cars that are in the snow pile behind us, that there is no one in that space."

Mayor Kennedy said, "Obviously I was concerned there might be a loss of life. I'm very happy to hear from the fire and rescue folks that they're confident that there aren't any people under there."

The rest of the garage was originally deemed safe enough to work in, so crews began digging toward the cars with shovels and bobcats.

Chief Whitaker said, "We are… working now to use some heavy equipment just to remove the snow that's piled there."

But as night started to fall, a potentially dangerous complication arose when Whitaker said, "We had some shifting of the structure that we were uncomfortable putting people under while that shifting was happening."

As crews were digging away snow, chunks of the fallen concrete had started to move. So, crews had to pull back while engineers braced the area immediately surrounding the collapse zone.

Heaters were brought in to melt the snow in order to expose the two cars. Because of cold overnight temperatures they estimated it could take between eight and 24 hours to expose the buried cars.

But Whitaker cautioned that even when the scene is cleared, it could take several months to get the cars on the second and third levels out of the garage, saying, "They literally have to reconstruct that ramp to get the cars out of there."

Mayor Kennedy said the parking garage was built in either 2005 or 2006.

The inspection status of the garage is unclear. Whitaker said because parking garages are not occupied spaces, they do not require annual inspections. Kennedy said Bayshore Mall conducts its own inspections, but when reached by phone, a representative for Bayshore had no idea when the inspections had occurred. Messages for the Glendale city inspector were not returned.

PHOTO GALLERY

Glendale mall was built in 1954. In 2006, the first of two major redevelopments began to redevelop the mall into a mixed-use center.