Several Rescued from Partial Collapse of IA Apartment Building

Rescuers and other crews remain at the scene of the partial collapse of a six-story apartment building in downtown Davenport Monday morning. Several people were injured and a search of the structure is on-going.

Firefighters were first called to The Davenport Apartment building at 324 Main St. at 4:55 p.m. and arrived to find the middle section in the rear of the 1906 building had collapsed with debris all over the parking lot and a natural gas leak.

Fire and rescue crews were summoned from Iowa and Illinois agencies, Mayor Mike Matson told the Quad Cities Times. Their response, he said, was "with the sole purpose of finding people and getting them out of the building."

Officials said seven people were rescued and removed from the building within a short time after the collapse. They assisted over a dozen others from the structure when they arrived.

Overnight, one person was "extracted" from the building, Fire Chief Mike Carlsten said during a press conference Monday morning, KWQC reported.

Carlsten said the region's Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) response was activated to bring search and rescue assets to the scene.

"This is a very specialized rescue, a time consuming rescue operation and we need to have more expertise and some more manpower to help us with that," Carlson said.

One resident, Lexus Barry, told the Quad City Times that he and his wife noticed small cracks in their apartment, but by Sunday the wall was seperating from a doorway.

“We both grab our cats, she grabbed one, I grabbed one, got to the door,” Berry said. “I watched her, and everything just fell down and everything fell on top of me, and I barely made it out the door … I got out, but there was nothing left but where I was standing at. Everything else was gone."

His wife was still missing Sunday evening.

City officials said the building had received complaints over the years and permits were in place for repairs.

Jennifer Smith, the co-owner of a business in the building told the newspaper that 14 apartments had been condemned in the building earlier this year after bricks started falling from the structure.  3