WHITE PLAINS — No one was injured in a Wednesday, Oct. 15, partial collapse at a privately-owned multi-level parking garage on Hale Avenue. But there are about 14 to 15 cars in the collapsed area and firefighters were continuing to shore up the structure, the city fire chief said.
At a news conference Wednesday by White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach and other officials, Public Safety Commissioner David Chong said the city started receiving multiple calls about the partial collapse at about 9:08 a.m.
The collapse, which involved an area of the fifth floor, prompted road closures in the area, resulting in heavy traffic.
“We are blessed that it wasn’t something more tragic,” Chong said, noting that had the collapse occurred earlier, “who knows what would have happened.”
Mayor Roach lauded the mutual aid response across several departments, and said crews were working on “shoring up the garage to make it safe to remove the vehicles that are in there.”
Initially, firefighters put in columns, Roach said. Now, they’re constructing more substantial columns for safety purposes.
“The (garage owner’s) engineer will come in and, when they sign off on it, then we will have an orderly removal of vehicles from the garage under the police’s supervision,” Roach said.
Emergency crews assess scene at White Plains parking garage
What caused the collapse was not immediately known. And it was not known when the cars in the affected area would be removed.
At the scene Wednesday, crews from numerous fire districts and law enforcement, such as White Plains Police Department and Hartsdale Fire Department, cordoned off the area surrounding the structure.
Responders could be spotted prepping wooden beams with power tools, to be used to shore up the collapsed area.
White Plains Fire Chief Claudio Petriccione said there are about 14 to 15 cars in the collapsed zone. “Units are showing up and stabilizing the structure,” he said.
Officials made it clear they were not going to allow anyone to go back inside the structure until it was safe to do so.
Police Chief Joseph Castelli said officials were “waiting for engineers and some of the other people who are evaluating the status of the structure to help us make a decision whether cars, or when cars, can be taken out of there.”
(This story was updated with new information and to correct the address of the incident.)
Contributing: lohud’s Frank Becerra Jr.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: No injuries in White Plains parking garage partial collapse, officials say
Reporting by Michael P. McKinney, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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