JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It has been one year since the top floor of a three-story parking garage at Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside on King Street partially collapsed and left multiple cars damaged.
The shocking scene left first responders scrambling and more than 100 cars trapped for days. Luckily, no one was hurt.
As of Thursday, the garage is still closed and the cause of the collapse was never released.
Two people who had their vehicles trapped in the garage spoke to News4JAX on Thursday.
“I was in the building by the garage collapse. And I was frightened, and I had an anxiety attack trying to get out of the building,” Cathy Cooner said.
Cooner was there to see her cardiologist following a heart attack. She said finding out part of this collapse trapped her car stressed her out.
Cooner said it was “hell” trying to get her car back.
Cooner said it was weeks before her car was moved from the garage and she got her belongings, then it was totaled out which forced her to get another one.
She said the hospital offered her $4,000 in compensation, but she did not accept it.
News4JAX reached out to St. Vincent’s to see how much it did end up paying in compensation to car owners but it did not respond.
Tim Wilbanks lives behind the garage.
He said last year he remembers being told not to go in his backyard for a week and after that.
“We’ve still been waiting to see what’s going to happen,” he said. “They’re not informing the neighborhood hardly of anything. They aren’t keeping us updated.”
Cooner said she’s still a patient because she likes her doctors. The only thing she does differently now when she comes is not park in these.
“Now when I have to go I use their valet parking,” she said.
A fence with no trespassing signs surrounds the parking garage and there are some signs of possible construction being done, but no crews were working when News4JAX checked on Thursday.
News4JAX tried to contact Ascension St. Vincent’s to get an update and learn if and when it will reopen, but it did not immediately respond.
It was difficult to get any new information on the collapse and the investigation in part because the local government said it doesn’t inspect privately owned parking garages.
JFRD Chief reflects on collapse
JFRD Chief Keith Powers remembers the day well.
“It was a pretty unstable scene when we got there,” he said. “Obviously, where the failure happened, part of the floor was partially suspended. But when you walked on the floor, it was so that it was moving up and down. So our first arriving apparatus that were in there, trying to make sure people weren’t in those vehicles that were underneath that were in an extremely dangerous situation.”
But he said despite the risk, first responders were eager to get into the collapsed garage to search for survivors car by car.
“Our folks, all they want to do is save people. It’s what they do,” Powers said.
He said it was a miracle no one was hurt.
“I don’t understand it. I say all the time: God had his hand on this fire department. He’s had his hand on this city for a long time because it was lunchtime and that parking garage was for a group of doctors’ offices, so there’s people going and coming all the time. And how somebody was not walking to their car or walking from their car or in their car, I can’t explain, but we were extremely lucky.”
City officials have said the building’s inspection and upkeep are the responsibility of its owner.
“So that, you know, once we get the scene safe, we turn that over to engineers, and those engineers then have to do their investigation determine, you know what the cause was, and I don’t know what that investigation showed, because it’s really, it really becomes the responsibility of the garage owner at that point,” he said.