Parking deck resembles a graveyard for cars

The red Honda Element resembles a missile that nailed its target. It stands perpendicular, wedged between two unfortunate cars in one corner of a heap of vehicles piled from the bottom up of a cratered parking deck in Midtown.

It is one of 38 vehicles that ended up stacked like pancakes after four floors of the six-story Centergy Parking Deck at Spring and 5th streets collapsed early Monday afternoon. Another one sits on one side of the massive hole in relative fortuity — a gold Ford Focus with Cobb County plates that has two wheels over the edge but otherwise appears undamaged.

Enlarge this image

JOHN SPINK / jspink@ajc.com

Fire Rescue personnel continued the search of the partially collapsed parking garage near Georgia Tech continued early Tuesday.

• Parking deck collapses in Midtown
• Builder fined in Botanical Garden collapse
• See photos of the parking deck

Such is the scene 18 hours after the initial collapse. Dozens of firefighters, search-and-rescue personnel, police and structural engineers worked the area. As of Tuesday morning emergency crews remained in what they call “rescue profile” but authorities said there has been no sign of human casualty.

“We still believe no one has been hurt but until we can get all the way in there we can’t be sure,” said fire emergency spokesman Tommy Rutledge. “There have been no reports of any persons unaccounted for, so that’s good.”

In the meantime, emergency crews busied themselves with the task of insuring structural integrity so that a recovery process can begin in earnest later today.

“I’m extremely pleased with the progress we’ve made,” said Atlanta Fire Department Battalion Chief Steven Woodworth, who has served as operations commander of the scene since midnight. “We’ve got so many people working. Except for getting a drink of water or taking a short break, nobody’s sitting around. Everybody’s moving.”

Approximately 80 emergency personnel representing 27 agencies from the metro Atlanta area are working the scene, fire officials said. There are also teams of structural engineers from Starzer Brady Fagan Associates Inc. of Atlanta and Metromont of Greenville, S.C.

The engineers supervise crews of firefighters constructing massive laced-post shoring structures out of wood. Built out of 6 x 6 beams and smaller posts and boards, fire officials said the the structures are capable of supporting 120,000 pounds each. They are being built between each floor on the periphery of the collapsed area along with metal rescue struts.

Meanwhile, wreckers from A Tow Inc. remove cars one at a time from load-bearing areas on the periphery of the collapsed area. Car alarms go off with regularity.

“It’s a very slow and deliberate process,” Woodworth said. “It’s an extended operation. It could be several days” before completed.

Only a football field away, life continued undeterred. At the edge of the yellow, crime-scene tape people rushed into the L.A. Fitness Center for morning workouts, gawking at the activity just a stone’s throw away. Meanwhile, gentlemen and ladies in business suits filed into Technology Square for work.