TV 6 Investigates: What triggered partial collapse that claimed three lives?

DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWQC) - An official cause is yet to be determined for the collapse of the apartment building at 324 Main St., but building experts agree it might have something to do with a 14-inch gap between the building and its façade.

It got worse as the building expanded in the summer and shrank in the winter.

Allyn Kilsheimer, the lead investigator into the Surfside condo collapse in Florida that killed 98 people, said loose bricks falling into the gap is one possible theory.

“When it wants to shrink again because it gets colder, it can’t move all the way back because that brick is in the way, right; it fell down in the hole,” he said.

And that forced the wall to bow.

“Then it expands again when it gets hot. And when it tries to come back, you have more debris, then it can’t go back because it’s stopped by this wall here.”

Lawsuits filed this week say the outer brick walls were load-bearing. When they gave way, so did the steel framing – and the rest of the building.

Attorneys for the victims are expected to bring in their own experts to evaluate.

“We have structural steel experts. We’ve got building forensic experts. We’ve got brick and mortar experts. This building was constructed over a century ago. It obviously didn’t have modern techniques. It did not take a certified engineer to identify obvious concerns with the building over time,” Steven Hart, of Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge, said.

The city of Davenport has also pledged an outside investigation. It’s still not clear who will lead it.

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