Search crews on-site Friday at partially collapsed Davenport building

DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWQC) - Iowa Task Force One crews are on-site Friday at the partially collapsed Davenport building searching through the rubble.

Davenport city officials held a briefing at 10 a.m. Friday to give updates for the partially collapsed building downtown.

Since Tuesday the Davneprot fire crews have worked to secure specialized teams that can come and help with the recovery efforts, according to Mike Carlson, Chief of the Davenport Fire Department.

“With those efforts, we have talked to multiple larger communities throughout the nation who have had events similar to this almost daily,” Carlson said. “We have had phone calls with Miami Dade their fire department and some of their city staff. Just so that we can try to learn from lessons and other communities and make sure that we are doing things according to the protocols that are established in best practices for this type of event.”

A qualified team of specialized experts are in Davenport from Iowa Task Force One, Carlson said.

Both Sioux City and Cedar Rapids divisions were mobilized Thursday as soon as possible to show up on-site, according to Rick Halleran Chief of the Cedar Rapids Division of Task Force One. Just under 50 people in total are in Davenport from the teams, with dogs on site giving alerts to their handlers to decipher what that alert means to their training and expertise.

Iowa Task Force One is completing the recon of the building, searching for survivors and those that may have been presumed to have perished inside the building, Halleran said. That search was completed before sundown Thursday night.

“That has allowed us to move to the next phase of our mission. shoring securing the building for control and recovery,” Halleran said. “Iowa Task Force One has installed exterior shoring on the walls deemed unsafe by our engineers. We are continuing to work with onsite commanders to provide search and rescue recovery capabilities in accordance with their needs.”

According to Halleran, Iowa Task Force One will remain on site and will be engaged with this process helping out the Davenport command structure.

“This building as I’ve stated it’s very dynamic as the temperature rises up and down during the day this building is expanding and contracting. So it’s talking to us. It’s telling us what it wants to do,” Halleran said.

According to Halleran, they are marking spots in the building the team will need shores to go back to, working through the building in a diligent and cautious move forward in a step-by-step process throughout.

The team was on the scene Sunday night into Monday, according to Halleran.

According to Carlson, the request was made on Wednesday and he talked to the chief throughout the incident. The fire department had some groundwork and some things that they had to do and get in place before the Iowa Task Force One Team could come back.

“The first 24 to 36 hours that we were there the building was in a constant state of motion,” Carlson said. “And we had to allow the building to settle a little bit before we could actually formalize on a solid plan that we can move forward and have their team come back to actually move forward until we work out some of the pieces are aside. There wasn’t much we could do with their team in that downtime.”

The next scheduled news conference is Monday at 10 a.m., according to Davenport City officials.

City officials held news conferences at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Thursday.

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