3 hurt in floor collapse in Savannah’s 1899 US courthouse
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2023 (1259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Three construction workers were injured Tuesday when part of an upper floor collapsed inside Savannah’s 124-year-old federal courthouse, which has been undergoing extensive renovations for more than a year.
All three workers were taken to a hospital, none of them with life-threatening injuries, after part of the courthouse’s third floor gave way and the workers tumbled down to the floor below, said Savannah Fire Battalion Chief Wayne Ifill. Everyone else inside the building was accounted for and not injured, he said.
“We went through the building twice to make sure,” Ifill said. “Now we know for a fact that it’s completely empty. And they’re not allowed to go back in it until they have a structural engineer come and do a good, solid assessment of the building.”
The Tomochichi Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse opened in 1899 on Wright Square in the heart of Savannah’s downtown historic district. It was named more than a century later for the chief of the Yamacraw people, a small band of Native Americans who befriended the colonial English settlers that founded Georgia in 1773.
The building is in the middle of a $75 million renovation scheduled for completion next year and has been essentially gutted on the inside, Ifill said. But it’s unclear why roughly 30 square feet (2.8 square meters) of the floor collapsed. No courthouse personnel were inside.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Ifill said.
Workers in hardhats huddled on street corners Tuesday afternoon outside the courthouse, where scaffolding covers portions of the building’s exterior.
There didn’t appear to be any threat of the exterior walls collapsing, according to Ifill. Still, the street along the south side of the courthouse, nearest where the floor fell in, was closed until structural engineers confirm the rest of the building isn’t at risk. It was not immediately known how quickly that inspection would occur.