116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Day after Davenport’s building collapse, woman rescued from inside
Tenants had complained of conditions at the 6-story building
DAVENPORT — Lisa Brooks, missing for more than a day after the apartment building she lived in partially collapsed in downtown Davenport, called her daughter Monday night from the fourth floor as a crowd surveyed the rubble.
Her daughter, family and onlookers cheered and yelled and ran to the side of the building that faced north to see her. Her nephew alerted firefighters and police officers.
Brooks waved out the window. "Get her out," the crowd chanted. Brooks' nephew, Antoine Smith Jr., had tears in his eyes and thanked God.
Firefighters drove an engine to the north side of the building and raised the bucket ladder to the window to rescue her. She scrambled into the bucket and was lowered to the engine, and helped down by firefighters to more cheers.
She was transported to a hospital to get checked over.
"I burst into an overflow of emotions," her nephew said. "Because I've been holding in so much stuff in order to be strong for everybody else and my family that was down there, trying to keep them calm."
Brooks' family has been sitting at the foot of the downtown Davenport building all day Monday, growing increasingly frustrated with the rescue that had up until Monday night not found her.
Brooks’ rescue late Monday marked the ninth person — at least one of them injured — saved from inside after part of the six-story downtown apartment gave way, months after occupants and the city expressed concerns that the building was facing a catastrophe.
No deaths from the partial collapse have been confirmed.
Davenport city officials said in a news release the property owner was served Monday with an order to demolish the unstable building, which may start Tuesday. The Davenport, an apartment building at 324 Main St., once housed the Davenport Hotel but has been converted into about 84 units with apartments and commercial spaces.
Residents were not being allowed back inside to remove their belongings, due to the building's instability. Several tenants who escaped have been moved into temporary housing and the rest are staying with friends or family.
“The property is currently being secured by a contractor on site this afternoon and demolition is expected to commence in the morning,” the statement said.
However, after the late Monday rescue, Chief Strategy Officer Sarah Ott said that the timing of the scheduled demolition was now under evaluation.
In a statement, property owner Andrew Wold offered prayers and thanks and offered to help displaced residents.
"We are saddened by this tragic event and we are thankful that it appears no one was killed. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured or displaced. We are grateful to the brave men and women of Davenport Fire and Police, city officials and all other emergency responders who were able safely evacuate the building and rescue the trapped individual.
“We will continue to assist the city and the displaced residents in any way we can. In the coming days we will work with city officials to understand the causes of this tragedy."
Firefighters and other first responders were being credited with saving lives — at great risk to their own personal safety, officials said Monday.
“When something like this happens here, and tragedy strikes, our responders immediately do their work and their job and I can’t thank them enough,” Mayor Mike Matson said.
Fire Chief Michael Carlsten said crews and K-9 units searched for survivors throughout the night and rescued one injured person and seven others from elsewhere in the building before Brooks was found hours later.
Iowa Task Force One, an urban search and rescue team based in Cedar Rapids, was called in to help. The city was trying to cross reference information on tenants with the property owner, Carlsten said, but not every person had a cellphone or second means for contact.
“No known individuals are trapped in that facility," Carlsten said Monday morning — only to be proven wrong when Brooks was rescued later.
Tenant Lexus Berry said she watched Sunday evening as her apartment collapsed with her wife still inside. Rescuers located and pulled her wife, Quanishia White-Berry, from the rubble overnight after being pinned for hours. She said her wife went into surgery.
"We are very blessed, but this is going to change our lives forever," she wrote in a text message.
The building collapsed just before 5 p.m. Sunday. Carlsten said the back of the complex separated from the mixed-use building, which houses both apartments and businesses. Authorities also found a gas leak in the building after the collapse. The cause of the collapse is not yet known.
Rich Oswald, the city of Davenport director of development and neighborhood services, said at a news conference that work was being done on the building’s exterior at the time of the collapse. Reports of bricks falling from the building earlier this week were part of that work and the building’s owner had a permit for the project, Oswald said.
But city officials said they had several complaints from residents about needed repairs. Oswald said the city had done “numerous inspections” of the building based on complaints or during the normal inspection process for rental units, and said there were three that questioned the structural stability.
“There has been some complaints to the structure,” Oswald said. “We issued notice orders to have those repaired. The building owner hired their own engineering firm to direct them in the repairs needed to be made. Once fire releases the scene, we will begin an extensive investigation to find out what exactly caused it.”
Jennifer Smith, co-owner of Fourth Street Nutrition, which moved into the building this winter, said tenants had told her the building would collapse.
“It sounds bad, but we have been calling the city and giving complaints since December. Our bathroom caved in in December,” she said.
Smith said water damage has been apparent since they moved into their space. Her fellow co-owner, Deonte Mack, said fire crews were in the building as recently as Thursday for an inspection.
Nearly 20 permits were filed in 2022 for building repairs, mainly for plumbing or electrical issues, according at the county assessor’s office reviewed by the Quad City Times.
Schlaan Murray, a former resident, told the Associated Press that his one-year stay at the apartment building was “a nightmare.”
Murray, 46, moved into his apartment in February 2022 and almost immediately began having issues. The heat and air conditioner didn't work, he said, and there were plumbing problems in the bathroom. He said he made multiple calls to the management company but seldom got a response. Occasionally, he said, a maintenance person would stop by but never truly fix the problem.
“They would come in and put some caulk on it,” he said. “But it needed more than that. They didn’t fix stuff, they just patched it up."
He questions how the building passed inspections.
“It was horrible,” Murray said, adding that he felt the conditions were so bad that he didn’t want to bring his children to his apartment.
Murray said he moved out a month before his lease was up in March, and still hasn't received his security deposit. He said that while the building's conditions were deplorable, many residents were like him and had a difficult time coming up with first and last month's rent, plus a security deposit, to move to another apartment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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