Metromont, Hardin Construction assist in parking deck collapse clean-up
June 30, 2009 at 12:45 pm by Thomas Wheatley in News
A car being removed this afternoon from the Centergy parking deck which collapsed yesterday.
The AJC reports that Hardin Construction, whom we discussed in this space yesterday, is working with clean-up and emergency crews to determine the cause of yesterday’s COLLAPSE THAT SHOOK THE WORLD.
From a statement by Hardin President Bill Pinto:
“Although Hardin’s last direct involvement with the Centergy project was in 2002, senior Hardin staff members were on site immediately, joining others in trying to understand what happened. We will continue to make ourselves available to investigators and offer our full cooperation and assistance.
Metromont, the concrete company that Hardin kind of threw under the bus in a released statement yesterday, says it also has workers on scene and will assist in the investigation.
From a statement by Rick Pennell, CEO of the Greenville, S.C.-based company:
“As has been reported, Metromont Corporation assisted Hardin Construction on this project, which was finished in 2002 and is just one of over 500 parking facilities that our seventy five year old company has helped construct. Our last direct involvement with the garage was in 2002.
More importantly, yesterday’s partial collapse of the parking facility in downtown Atlanta is a terrible incident. We are pleased with the initial reports of no loss of life. Our senior design professionals have been on the site since yesterday afternoon working side by side with fire and public safety officials, assisting them in assessing the structural condition of the building, so that search efforts could begin without further danger to those first responders on the site. I arrived in Atlanta last evening and I am currently on the site with our team. Metromont Corporation is committed to providing whatever assistance, professional expertise or additional resources may be requested in this matter.”
Occupational Safety and Health Administration staffers are also on site. No formal investigation has been launched. The AJC says no one knows exactly whom will lead the investigation into exactly the parking deck collapsed.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
June 30th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Geez can they save the excuses until after this is figured out. Both developers immediately come out with statements claiming they didn’t really work on the project ‘recently’ and that this represents only a small fraction of parking decks they worked on that could have collapsed. WooHoo!
June 30th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Let’s face it. No one is at fault. It is just one of those things. Hardin and the other firm just collected the money. They were not really responsible for much else, so stop the whining.
July 1st, 2009 at 7:12 am
Braveheart & ATLGood:
Y’all are both jumping the gun a bit. Let the investigators uncover actual information before we determine whether anybody’s at fault for this. It could be there was shoddy construction, like OSHA is alleging in the Botanical Gardens bridge collapse. Or it could be there were other factors.
Let’s pay close attention. I look forward to CL’s coverage of this issue.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:17 am
a news report on 7/8/09 claims there will be NO official investigation of this accident. Since it was not a work site and no workers were involved, OSHA will not be investigating, and other officials are declining to investigate as well. If true, this is UNBELIEVABLE! Well constructed buildings don’t just fall down for no reason and we don’t live in China (yet). We cannot allow this incident to be swept under the rug. It is nothing short of a miracle that no one was injured or killed.