Two missing workers at CHOP garage ‘presumed deceased,’ Mayor Cherelle L. Parker says

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker announced Thursday night that two workers missing in the collapse of a Grays Ferry parking garage are “presumed deceased.”

The seven-story corner tower suffered a deadly collapse on Wednesday afternoon, killing one worker and leaving two more missing. Parker said that the demolition of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s parking garage will begin tomorrow.

Rescue efforts proceeded slowly and carefully Thursday, because of the building’s unstable condition. Parker said K-9 dogs were brought in to help search the ruins, but their efforts were fruitless.

“No signs of life were identified by the four highly trained dogs,” Parker said. “We now had the intelligence that was essential and necessary to support our shifting from rescue to recovery.”

The names of the individuals have not been released, but Parker said that the city is in touch with their families. All three men are members of Philadelphia’s Iron Workers Union Local 401.

The subcontractor installing the precast concrete for the project is Ohio-based Precast Services Inc., according to Parker, who said on Wednesday night that the collapse began when a “precast roof segment failed.”

Precast concrete is a common construction material, especially in parking garages and bridges. It is poured off site and then slabs are fit together. Accidents are rare. But when they occur the consequences can be deadly, because of the sheer weight of the material.

On Thursday evening, residents of the streets surrounding the worksite began receiving leaflets and verbal warnings from the Department of Licenses and Inspections offering an “interior pre-demolition survey of your home” in anticipation of Friday’s demolition action.

Philadelphia’s managing director, Adam Thiel, said that the city will be preparing for demolition overnight and monitoring the site. Deconstruction should begin Friday afternoon.

“We expect that this will remain a very complex and extremely dangerous incident,” said Thiel. “We will not stop until everyone is returned to their loved ones with dignity, respect, and honor.”

On Wednesday night, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey W. Thompson said that he planned to carefully deconstruct the building to try and rescue the missing workers.

But his team monitored the structure with lasers last night, and found that the structure was extremely weakened and even more dangerous than anticipated.

“Unfortunately, they did detect severe movement, which was an indicator that this building was severely unstable and could collapse at any moment,” said Thompson.

On Thursday, they brought in four dogs, two trained to find live people trapped in debris and two trained to find human remains. Only the latter two dogs reacted to their findings in the ruined building.

“So we were confident that what we were dealing with was no longer a rescue, but a recovery,” said Thompson.

As deconstruction and rescue operations proceed, the city is asking those who don’t live nearby to refrain from visiting the area; 29th to 33rd Streets along Grays Ferry Avenue will remain closed off, as will the shopping plaza across the street from the semi-collapsed garage.

Parker promised a thorough investigation of what caused the collapse of CHOP’s garage, but said she was not able to provide further details at the moment. She acknowledged the presence of the District Attorney’s Office on the site today, as a precautionary measure to ensure all possible evidence is preserved.

“We are going to get to the damn bottom of what happened,” the mayor said. “We will empower the tools of transparency while we are doing it.”

But the first priority is demolition and finding the two missing workers.

“We are laser focused on safely seeing the demolition of that structure occur while working extremely hard to ensure dignity in the recovery of any of the human souls that we are able to return to their families, with dignity, and a whole lot of prayer,” said Parker.