NYC Parking Garage Collapses In Lower Manhattan Leaving 1 Dead And Multiple Injured
Tragic news follows a warning last week that new EVs could be too heavy for older parking garages
by Chris Chilton
April 19, 2023 at 09:16
by Chris Chilton
One person has been killed and five others injured in Manhattan after a New York City parking garage collapsed. The accident happened just after 4pm on Tuesday on Ann Street in the city’s Financial District when the multi-deck garage began to implode. The roof was first to fall, dropping down onto the third floor below it, but it wasn’t long before more of the building began to give way.
Emergency services said that there were six workers known to be inside the building at the time of the collapse and that all have been accounted for. Unfortunately, one of those people was killed in the crush while another four were taken to hospital with injuries, though they are in a stable condition. A sixth worker was also injured but refused medial attention at the scene.
One of the workers was trapped on one of the building’s upper floors and was heard calling out to firefighters looking for survivors. He was rescued and taken to the safety of another building, while another worker who had fallen through the building from the second floor to the first managed to walk away, and another was apparently saved from flying debris because he was in an elevator at the time of the collapse.
Related: If You Own An EV, You Might Want To Avoid Multi-Story Car Parks
Rescue teams deployed a robot dog and drones to gather video evidence of the inside of the garage to help assess its condition and search for any people trapped in the rubble, but have declared the building unsafe and won’t be sending anyone else inside until the structure is secured.
It’s too early to know for sure exactly what caused the collapse, but initial findings seem to suggest it was caused by the sheer number of vehicles parked on the roof deck, plus the age of the building itself. We don’t know the full list of cars that was parked on the top deck of the garage, but only last week we reported that EV drivers were being advised not to park their cars in multi-level garages because the additional weight of electric vehicles versus older, gas-powered cars had the potential to overload elderly garage structures.
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A parking garage collapsed in New York City, killing at least one worker and injuring five others https://t.co/Z8SOXUmusV pic.twitter.com/4KHIdeFlY6
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 19, 2023
Parking garage collapses in Manhattan pic.twitter.com/mmDT9f0YLM
— • ᗰISᑕᕼIᗴᖴ ™ • (@4Mischief) April 18, 2023
BREAKING: At least 1 dead and 5 injured after a parking garage in Lower Manhattan collapsed. Details below:
• The garage is a location where the New York Sheriff’s Department parks their vehicles.
• The second floor of the five-story parking garage collapsed into the first… pic.twitter.com/HLAvSvGpaj
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) April 18, 2023
