Waukesha, Wisconsin, still reeling from a Christmas parade tragedy less than two weeks earlier, may have avoided another disaster December 2 when the city’s fire department evacuated a condominium building because of structural concerns.
The fire department ordered the evacuation of the 48-unit Horizon West Condominium Building after an independent structural engineering report showed compromised conditions of existing structural columns, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The evacuations affected as many as 80 people, the paper said.
“The moment we became aware of these issues this evening, we put an evacuation plan into action,” the City of Waukesha wrote on its Facebook page.
The news immediately invoked memories of another tragedy in June, when nearly 100 people lost their lives in a condo collapse near Miami that. It was later revealed in the Florida collapse that evidence existed of structural damage as long as three years before the collapse.
Two adjacent properties to the condo building were also evacuated because they are considered in the collapse zone.
Dave Lubach is the managing editor, Facility Market.
