Fort Leavenworth USDB Wall Collapse
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011When I first heard of the wall collapse myself, I thought it was the USDB that is currently active. Not the case. It is the old USDB. The one that was torn down and made into a parking lot! What a rip!
Anyways, that could be another post. On the 29th of August at approximately 0930 hours, a wall that is part of the old USDB (AKA USDB Building 7) fell down while contractors were attempting to repair a portion of that particular wall. Check out the pictures that were taken on my phone.
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I am in no way affiliated with the news sources listed here, however, in this case, this is where you can get the best information. I am going to paste the content of the news source’s website. The source is The Leavenworth Lamp.
Fort Leavenworth, Kan. — One person was hurt with what appeared to be non-life threatening injuries, according to medics at the scene, after a portion of a three-and-a-half-story building collapsed around 9:30 a.m. Aug. 29 on Fort Leavenworth.
The worker, a contractor, was taken via helicopter to a nearby hospital and was conscious and speaking to emergency responders upon leaving post.
Col. Wayne Green, garrison commander of Fort Leavenworth, said the building inside the walls of the old U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at the corner of Bluntville and McPherson avenues, was vacant and under construction. Contractors were renovating the building for administrative spaces.
“We’re very blessed there were not more injured,” Green said.
Green said the worker was near the bottom of the building while a second group of workers was pouring concrete on the third floor of the building. Green said the weight of the concrete added stress to the wall along the southwest corner of the building.
Rubble and wet concrete fell on the man working below, pinning him to the ground.
Joyce Taylor, who works at the Counterinsurgency Center nearby, was able to see some of the activity from her window. She said the partial collapse of the wall didn’t make much of a noise, but employees in her building quickly realized something was going on when emergency responders reacted to the incident.
Taylor said emergency responders looked ready and prepared with emergency equipment and medical supplies.
“They were ready,” she said. “It was covered with trucks, and everybody was doing their jobs.”
Spc. Jared Pollard and Pfc. Jeremy Warren, both with Medical Department Activity, didn’t wait for a call to go out. When they heard about the incident, they immediately responded.
When Pollard and Warren arrived, the man was buried in rubble — a mixture of wet cement, bricks and other parts of the building. Only the top of his head and shoulders were showing.
“As soon as we got there, we just starting grabbing handfuls (of rubble),” Warren said.
The medics said contractors on site and other emergency responders built a small structure around the man to keep more rubble from falling on him and also used a short spine board to support his back.
Emergency responders from throughout the Kansas City area were able to free the man and evacuate him. The Fort Leavenworth Fire Department, Leavenworth Fire Department, Leavenworth County Fire District No. 1, and Leavenworth County EMS were on scene,;and Kansas Task Force 3, consisting of Leavenworth County, Johnson County and Wyandotte County fire departments, was on standby.
Green said he was grateful for the partnerships with off-post agencies that assisted with the response. The same groups of people had completed an exercise the week before in preparation for emergency incidents on post.
“The rapidity of response is what we train for,” he said.
Green said renovation of the building, and the building next to it, would stop until an investigation could be completed.
Bill Waugh, director of Public Works, said the Army Corps of Engineers will conduct an investigation on the military side, and the building contract company will also conduct an investigation. Waugh said he did not know how long the investigation would take or whether the construction project would continue upon its completion.
The building, known as 467 and USDB building No. 7, was built as part of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks between 1887 and 1892.
A 2006 preliminary architectural assessment of the entire USDB complex says part of the west outer wall was torn down and the grounds extended to make room for the building, which is about 34,000 square feet. It is about 10 feet from the outer USDB complex wall.
“The exterior of the building retains a high degree of historic integrity with its configuration dating to the building’s construction,” the 2006 architecture study said. “With the exception of removal of the chimneys, replacement windows and installation of fire escapes and new fire doors, there have been few exterior modifications.”
The study noted several interior modifications. Originally a 90-cell cellhouse with a kitchen and dining room in the basement, the building later housed shoe and harness shops, a quartermaster storehouse and an electrical shop. In the 1970s, the building was used for vocational training, plumbing storage, and a supply storage and hobby shop. Various other improvements to the interior were done throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Historic features of the interior of the building include wood columns, a few historic partition walls, pressed metal ceilings, wood floors, exposed masonry walls, wood staircases, doors and trim and cast iron radiators.When the new USDB was constructed in 2003, the Army reached an agreement with the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office that it would continue to maintain the remaining buildings and attempt to develop an alternate use for them.
Here is a link the to article regarding the wall collapse:
The Fort Leavenworth Lamp –> USDB Wall Collapse
