USA TODAY International Edition
Two die in Hard Rock construction collapse
A second person has died in Saturday’s collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel on Canal Street in New Orleans.
The city’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness confirmed the death to the Associated Press on Sunday. One person is still unaccounted for.
A search and rescue team has been deployed to a stable portion of the building to search for another missing person. Authorities said although they don’t know whether the missing person is alive, they are treating the operation as a rescue effort.
“We don’t have the ability to get to them,” said New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent Tim McConnell. “There are engineers working to determine how to make it safe in order to get to that individual.
“There is a very strong possibility of further collapse by this crane right now,” McConnell said. He called the rescue effort no short- term event.
“This is a marathon,” he said.
The bodies of the two people killed have not been recovered. Thirty people were injured. Only one remains in the hospital. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell visited the man, who had surgery for a leg injury.
Welder David Hensley was inside the building working when he heard a loud noise, “like a train or an earthquake,” he said.
As the floors began collapsing, Hensley said, he leaped to a scaffolding to escape.
“I go to the side and just see the building collapse and just start hitting floors to floors going down. I had to run out there, run to the back of the building trying to get myself safe. Jumped to the next floor and climbed down the scaffolding,” Hensley said. “I saw the levels collapse, 18 all the way to 7.
“It’s mind boggling.”