I've been fascinated with his even though I am in Austin. Last night I read where car owners are waiting to get their cars out but the local news just reported that they got most of the cars out. I assume that means undamaged cars. The problem was that people were trying to get coverage through their insurance for rental cars, etc and the insurance companies were either saying they couldn't pay unless they can verify the car is totaled or that they could not pay for a rental car unless their car was actually damaged. Is anyone out there? Is there a crowd? How are they getting the cars out? are they driving them out. I assume it's only fire people that are driving them out? The Local news also said that it appears to be unstable ground beneath the garage as the cause and not the garage itself.
The cars that they are getting out are either those on the ground level, or maybe at the far end of garage, away from the collapse area if on the top floor. The people driving them out are employees of the engineering firm hired to find the cause of the collapse, as well as add support where needed to stabilize the top level & prevent additional falls. They have added supporting plates, and in some areas, added vertical beams to secure the roof level. The driveable cars should all be removed by now, or certainly by Monday.
What has been said locally is that once they get all the cars that can safely be removed, they will clear part of the area & bring in a basket crane to get those on the top level that are near the open area where it fell. There's a line of cars, parked nose in, along the outside edge of the upper lot. They'd only be able to back up a handful of feet before the rear wheels would drop off into the abyss. Plus, they are next to the unstable area anyway, so nobody wants to creep forward & backward multiple times, to try & get the cars into a position where they could be driven. They were saying that the basket crane would be used to pluck the cars off, one at a time, without having to have someone on the roof to attach cables to each car.I'm guessing that perhaps it would have a set of cradles to slide into place & lift the cars via their wheels, like a wheel-lift wrecker.
I saw the same comments where one of the owner's insurance company told her they would process a claim until their adjuster could physically examine the vehicle. That may be a while, for those cars on the ground level, beneath the fallen roof. Some of the cars that were on the roof, especially those on the second section that fell later in the day, look relatively undamaged. They were bounced around by the fall, but may have little serious damage.
See this DMN article for the latest.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/irving/2018/08/04/dozen-cars-removed-collapsed-parking-garage-irving
They have not officially stated a cause for the structure failure. Unstable ground could be a factor. I would also note that that area, in the Las Colinas area, was the site of, or adjacent to, many of the earthquakes that rocked the area over the past few years. There is a fault that runs through there, and there was a fracking disposal well off to the southeast that SMU geologists said was also a contributing factor for the tremblers.
