DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A woman was rescued more than a day after a six-story apartment building partially collapsed in Davenport and after city officials pushed for it to be demolished, saying it was in “imminent danger” of coming down. Protesters urged for a delay, concerned that people could still be trapped inside.
Protesters carried signs Tuesday morning near the building site, saying “Find Them First” and asking “Who is in the Rubble." Some used a megaphone to shout out the names of building residents.
The city said in a statement that it has been “continually evaluating the timing of the demolition” and that “the building remains structurally insecure and in imminent danger of collapse.”
The woman was rescued at about 8 p.m. Monday after calling her family and waving for help, according to multiple news reports. The building partially collapsed shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday. A city statement late Monday said an injured woman had been extricated, but it wasn't immediately clear if this was the same person referred to in news reports. Authorities did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
When firefighters initially arrived Sunday, they found and escorted more than a dozen people from the building and rescued others, the city said. No fatalities have been reported.
“There was a lot of screams, a lot of cries, a lot of people saying ‘Help!’ when the building came down,” Tadd Mashovec, a resident of the building, told KCCI-TV. “But that did not last, and two or three minutes, and then the whole area was silent.”
It wasn't clear what immediately caused the collapse, which left a gaping hole in the center of what was once the Davenport Hotel, a building listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Built in 1907, the brick-over-steel and concrete structure had been renovated into a mixed-use building with residential and commercial spaces.
Work was being done on the building’s exterior at the time of the collapse, said Rich Oswald, the city’s director of development and neighborhood services. Reports of falling bricks were part of that work, and the building’s owner had a permit for the project, Oswald said.
Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for Scott County in response to the collapse, activating the Iowa Individual Assistance Grant Program and the Disaster Case Management Program for the residents left homeless. The property owner was served Monday with a demolition order, and residents were prevented from going back inside to remove their belongings, due to the building's unstable condition.
Authorities confirmed that multiple residents had complained of unmet maintenance problems. Quad-City Times reported nearly 20 permits were filed in 2022, mainly for plumbing or electrical issues, according to the county assessor’s office.
The collapse didn't surprise Schlaan Murray, a former resident, who told The Associated Press that his one-year stay there was “a nightmare.”
Murray, 46, moved into his apartment in February 2022 and almost immediately began having issues — the heat and air conditioner didn't work, and there were plumbing problems in the bathroom. He said he made multiple calls to the management company and rarely got a response. When a maintenance person did stop by, they never completely fixed the problems, he said.
“They would come in and put some caulk on it,” he said. “But it needed more than that. They didn’t fix stuff, they just patched it up."
He questions how the building passed inspections.
“It was horrible,” Murray said, adding that he felt the conditions were so bad that he didn’t want to bring his children to his apartment.
Murray said he moved out a month before his lease was up in March, and still hasn't received his security deposit. Despite deplorable conditions, many residents were like him and struggled to come up with the first and last month's rent, plus security deposit, required to move elsewhere.
The first responders were credited with saving lives, at great risk to their personal safety, officials said. Fire Chief Michael Carlsten said the back of the complex had separated from the rest of the building, and authorities found a gas leak.
“When something like this happens here, and tragedy strikes, our responders immediately do their work and their job and I can’t thank them enough,” Mayor Mike Matson said.
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Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Ahmed reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press reporter Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this story.
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