After months of waiting, residents of the Dallas apartment complex that was the site of a deadly crane collapse in June will be reunited with their vehicles.
A massive crane at a nearby construction site toppled and landed on the Elan City Lights Apartments on June 9 during a powerful wind storm. The incident killed one woman and forced all residents of the building from their homes.
The complex's parking garage was badly damaged. Now that the crane has been removed from the building, Elan City Lights property management said they're ready to begin pulling vehicles from the structure.
Starting Monday, apartment management said crews would photograph the exteriors of each vehicle in the garage, lift each car with a crane and tow them to an off-site location where residents would be able to reclaim them.
The process will go one floor at a time, beginning from the top working down. Management said they estimate they'll be able to remove 10-12 vehicles each day.
Former Elan residents like Jennifer Gonzalez could only look on and wait for her vehicle's turn.
"My car's on the third floor so I know it's going to be a while before they get to it," she said.
David Mendoza said he was also waiting to reunite with his brand new Chevy pickup truck.
"It was big. She was beautiful. She was brand new. She maybe had a couple thousand miles on her. I had her for about four months," he said. "It was my dream truck."
Mendoza said he had to purchase costly new tools to replace the ones in his truck.
The Dallas artist was among approximately 124 units close to the collapse zone still waiting for get their apartment belongings back.
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Complex management said it had contacted everyone who had a vehicle in the garage with instructions on how to get their vehicles back.
They said they're also working on a plan to help residents remove the remaining items from their apartments. They released a statement Monday evening.
"While the removal of vehicles from the upper floors of the garage has gone quickly today, we expect it to become more challenging as we go deeper into the parking structure. The lower floors will require removal and reshoring of certain portions of the garage in order to access vehicles. The car removal process is expected to take several weeks to complete." – Elan City Lights Apartments
