Authorities and employees are grateful no one was injured in the initial, partial collapse of a parking garage in Irving.
Nearly two dozen vehicles were damaged or destroyed in the first collapse.
A second collapse caused at least three cars to come crashing down in the 4 p.m. hour.
“We thought it was an earthquake,” said Melissa Espinoza.
The sight outside of office buildings shook many to their core.
“We were sitting looking outside of the window and somebody said: Oh my God! Look! The parking lot fell,” said Gary Melnick.
Little did he know his Honda CRV would become one of at least 21 vehicles badly damaged by the initial partial collapse of a parking garage serving several surrounding businesses.
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The gaping hole left in the garage hit some like a ton of bricks.
Pramod Cheedalia stood on top of a hill trying to get a better look of his brand new luxury car.
“I bought it a couple months back. It’s a 2018 Benz GLE and I parked it there,” he said. “No longer there I guess.”
Espinoza’s 2007 Infinity car was somewhere in the rubble too.
“It’s completely smushed,” she said. “It’s gone.”
Making matters worse, she just paid it off.
“Two weeks ago,” she said. “Yeah. Terrible. Yeah, it’s hard.”
Curious onlookers and employees stepped out of their office buildings along Fuller Drive to survey the damage.
The collapse happened at about 11:30 a.m.
Workers say the timing is actually a blessing because it happened before the main lunch rush at Noon.
“Around lunchtime there’s people walking around and exercising and coming back and forth from lunch,” said employee Michelle Reising. “It’s a very active parking garage.
Even with the destruction of personal property affected vehicle owners kept things in perspective.
“At least nobody got hurt,” said Cheedalia.
