Government, US NewsDAVENPORT, IOWA – The owner of an Iowa apartment building that collapsed in May, killing three people, has filed a lawsuit that blames an engineering company for not warning the building was structurally unsound and that residents should be evacuated.
The lawsuit argued Select Structural Engineering didn’t identify the risk of collapse, the danger of such a collapse and repairs that would have avoided a collapse. Officer Tom Van De Wiele wrote in the email May 30 that another code enforcement officer, Anthony Haut, showed him pictures of an exterior wall that he said showed the danger. In the email, Van De Wiele wrote, “He was frustrated and whispered to me that `the whole side is going to come down.’”