Wall Collapse Snarls Traffic on Henry Hudson
New York, NY —
REPORTER: It was a scene more familiar to Southern Californians than to New Yorkers. A huge pile of earth had slid down onto a highway, complete with an uprooted tree. David Muhlfelder stood on the corner of Riverside Drive and 181st Street. He had just been evacuated from his apartment building by firefighters. He recalled what happened at around 4 p.m. as he sat by his computer.
MUHLFELDER: I heard a rumble which sounded like a truck getting stuck under the pedestrian bridge which happens occasionally, there’s a pedestrian bridge over the West Side highway. That was followed a few minutes later by a second rumble which was much louder, which sent my cat running for cover.
REPORTER: Mulfelder ran to his window.
MUHLFELDER: There was a big horseshoe shaped cut of land gone, missing. And there was an exposed pipe spraying water.
REPORTER: Residents of Washington Heights tried to get a glimpse of the wall that was as they stood outside, surrounded by fire trucks and police cars.
REPORTER: Carlos Pellecier and Moses Reyes said there was blue scaffolding underneath the wall for several years. Pellecier is a doorman at the building next to the one that was evacuated. He said people knew not to park their cars on that part of Riverside Drive because debris would sometimes come raining down.
PELLECIER: I was here one day when one of my tenants’ brand new car, a rock came down and smashed it brand new car. REYES: Yeah, debris was falling down. PELLECIER: They had to change their car, give them a brand new car I was here that day.
Reyes, who lives across 181st street, said he was surprised the retaining wall hadn’t been repaired.
REYES: I lived here for so many years, and I sit there and have lunch and I see things falling down but the walls are cracked and nobody pay attention to it.
REPORTER: Later, during a press conference on the scene, Mayor Bloomberg said water damage appeared to have been the culprit. He said the 600 foot long stone wall was built around 1908. Bloomberg said an engineer hired by the neighboring Castle Village complex had been considering repairs.
BLOOMBERG: It had been moving over a few years and he was on site earlier in the day around 11 o’clock this morning and standing under it and he did not think it was going to come down. But it was something for concern and they were going to work on it next week, in fact they had talked to the Department of Transportation about getting a permit to close the road, which they would have found was necessary in order to do the work.
REPORTER: And, following the recent controversy over whether the police or fire departments should be in charge of certain disasters, Bloomberg also praised the cooperation of all the different agencies at the collapse site. There were transportation department engineers, police officers with rescue dogs, and more than 160 firefighters operating in what he called a unified command. But it wasn’t clear which agency was in charge.
REPORTER: The buildings commissioner said inspections would continue last night before the hundreds of people who had been evacuated could return to 1380 Riverside Drive. The Red Cross was also there to assist them. But not everyone was eager to go home. Prisca Prito stood around the corner with her two teenage daughters. They had fled their apartment after the collapse – taking only the plastic house for their baby hamster. Prito said one of her daughters was too upset to speak.
PRITO: She’s all nervous. And she said that she doesn’t want to live any more in that building because she feels insecure.
REPORTER: She said the family would spend the night with a nearby relative. For WNYC I’m Beth Fertig.
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