Last Saturday morning, the under-construction, $85 million multiuse Hard Rock hotel, retail, and apartment project at 1031 Canal Street in the French Quarter in New Orleans suffered a partial floor collapse of 11-floor slabs killing two and injuring 18 of the over 100 workers who were on the site during the collapse.
Originally alerted by what the media termed a crane collapse, an initial review of the video and drone footage shows that there might have been a partial floor collapse that caused a crew elevator to collapse into Canal St. barely missing a trolley carrying locals and tourists down Canal in the French Quarter. The Mayor and other city officials have promised a thorough investigation of the project. Currently, there is one worker still missing in the debris field of the collapsed floor and rescue workers are having difficulty searching the unstable site.
In the videos, you can see a number of workers on one of the floors scrambling to avoid being hurt or killed in the melee. They might have been lined up to take the elevator for a break or for lunch barely avoiding the collapse.
The 18-floor hotel and apartment/condo project was to include 350 hotel rooms, 62 apartments, and support facilities and amenities. “The $85 million project is being constructed by Citadel Builders of Metairie. Along with Hard Rock, the project's partners include Mohan Kailas; Denzel Clark, president of Citadel; and Todd Trosclair, CEO of Metairie-based All-Star Electric. Harry Baker Smith is the architect.”
Safety officials and emergency workers are stabilizing the structure and OSHA safety officials will join the city officials to determine the cause of the collapse. The crew is concerned over the possibility that one of the two climbing cranes on the site might collapse and they are bringing in additional equipment to shore up the crane so that rescue teams can continue their search for the missing worker.
