Concrete mixing truck damages Dilworth parking deck; building owners working to repair damage

CHARLOTTE — A concrete mixing truck damaged a parking deck in Dilworth near uptown Wednesday afternoon, according to the Charlotte Fire Department.

Authorities responded around 1 p.m. to the deck on East Morehead Street near South Caldwell Street.

The parking deck was built in 1995 and is owned by Sun Life Financials, a financial company with its U.S. headquarters in Massachusetts. In a statement sent to Channel 9 on Sunday morning, the company confirmed the accident happened on their property and says they are working with structural engineers and other experts to repair the damage to the parking garage.

The fire department said the truck was carrying a load of dry mix concrete, tried to turn around and caused partial failure to the top deck. In a video from the department, the back wheels of the truck could be seen partially dropped into the top of the deck.

“Right now, we have 110,000 pounds from the truck, so that is adding to the weight of the parking deck along with the other vehicles,” said Capt. Jackie Gilmore.

For hours, firefighters worked with structural engineers to stabilize the deck and avoid a collapse. Crews set up multiple pneumatic struts on the lower deck to help bear the weight under the truck. Officials said each strut can support up to 80,000 pounds.

In total, crews had to move about 55 tons from the top deck.

“We are worried about catastrophic failure of the parking deck, so again, we are following the lead right now from the structural engineers to determine what we do going forward,” Gilmore said.

At around 4 p.m., the department said the truck was removed from the deck.

“There is structural and partial collapse of the structure from the truck, itself,” Gilmore said.

SkyDrone9 got a better view of the damage and the gaping hole left behind.

Fire officials said the truck was not moving when its wheel fell through the deck and got stuck. The driver was able to get out safely.

Makenzie Elam, an intern in the nearby building, had a vehicle parked in the deck and said she was able to breathe a bit easier after the initial shock.

“The valet, Preferred Parking people, were really quick at it, and moving people’s vehicles that they could,” Elam said.

Others at the Dilworth office building could only watch and wait.

“I thought any little movement, it was literally gonna fall through,” witness Janet Martinez said. “And I was worried about the firefighters that were under the deck, because they were risking their lives out there.”

County code enforcement said the building inspector and structural engineers have deemed the entire garage unoccupiable until a structural engineer can examine the deck and repairs can be made. The parking deck will be closed until further notice while structural engineers determine the stability of the deck.

You can read the full statement from Sun Life Financials below:

“Our property management team confirms that an incident occurred on the site of a shared parking garage facility resulting in significant damage to the garage and impacting the availability of onsite parking for tenants. Fortunately, no injuries resulted from this incident nor were there any impacts to the structure of our office building. All vehicles have been safely removed from the garage. Working on behalf of our property’s ownership and in collaboration with the landlord of the adjacent property, which was also impacted, we are now engaged with structural engineers and other experts to repair the damage to the parking garage. The safety and wellbeing of our tenants and visitors is our top priority, and the garage will remain closed until it is certified to be safe. We are working closely with Mecklenburg County officials in this process. Until the garage reopens, we are using surface-level parking at our property and have secured additional nearby parking with a valet service for the convenience of our tenants and their visitors.”

Check back with wsoctv.com for updates.

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