JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Rebecca Bowman is an engineering expert with the National Society of Professional Engineers. She used to live in Jacksonville and is now in Pennsylvania and one of her areas of expertise is forensic engineering, where she helps determine what happened during disasters like the partial parking garage collapse that happened Wednesday in Jacksonville.
She said it is quite possible whatever caused the partial collapse of a parking garage on the campus of Ascension St. Vincent’s hospital in Riverside had been getting worse for a long time.
“It’s far more common that there is a gradual failure. A gradual accumulation of damage, for example rather than a single sudden catastrophic failue so the video might show you a sequence,” Bowman said.
Bowman said the scene needs to remain isolated kind of like a crime scene while engineers systematically figure this out using everything from surveillance video to inspecting every fastener and section of concrete.
“One of the first things I would do is freeze the site so it can’t be entered, can’t be altered and I’m sorry for the people whose cars are there but they need to stay for now,” she said. “I would also look for surveillance cameras in the area that would give me a running film of the failure.”
One thing that was speculated in the hours after the collapse was whether water damage deteriorated concrete and the rebar embedded in it. But Bowman said water damage is not the only potential cause.
“There are an infinite number of failure sources,” she said. “It can be anything from a fastener failure to a defective concrete installation initially to undersized rebar compared to the plan. Excessive loads on a structure. There may have been wind damage that came through and weakened something.”
Batson-Cook, the company that built the garage, issued a statement on Wednesday:
“Batson-Cook has not worked on this project since 2007 and, as Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Chief Keith Powers has already stated, the inspection and continued upkeep of the parking structure are the responsibility of the owner. We are and will continue to assist with this investigation. We stand by our work and our safety practices. We’d also like to extend our thanks to the first responders who, as this incident showed, rush to keep people safe daily.”
The cause of the collapse is still unclear.
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Chief Kevin Powers said Ascension St. Vincent’s is responsible for conducting building inspections on the parking garage. The News4JAX I-TEAM asked the health system for a copy of the latest inspection report its policy for inspecting buildings and parking garages and whether it is taking any measures to ensure the safety of other buildings on the hospital campus, but it did not immediately respond.