Courtesy of Tom Wall.
There is no sign of casualties at the Watergate garage, which crumpled in a “pancake collapse” on Friday morning.
Two people were injured in the incident, but it wasn’t immediately clear if there was anyone trapped inside the public garage. A search dog trained to find cadavers registered a possible hit on Friday, but no one had been reported missing.
When they replicated the search on Sunday, the dogs reported that no one was inside.
“As of yesterday there was no indication that there was anyone left behind,” said Fire Department spokesman Timothy Wilson.
It would be “pretty miraculous” if there were no serious injuries or deaths, said Tom Wall, after witnessing the destruction in the garage firsthand. “It looked like a war zone.”
Wall, who works for the National Trust For Historic Preservation on the 10th floor of the Watergate, watched as the courtyard above the parking garage collapsed inward, pulling in concrete, plants, and trees. The pathway that he and coworkers traverse everyday to get the the lot “was just completely obliterated.”
Crews shored up the site enough that they could conduct a primary search yesterday, and firefighters remain on the scene, Wilson said.
The cause of the collapse has not yet been determined.
Rachel Sadon