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Published March 01, 2010, 07:56 AM

Video: Heavy sandbags cause a warehouse floor to collapse

Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) - A scary situation during rush hour tonight in Fargo. Heavy sandbags caused a warehouse floor to collapse. To make matters worse, the weight of all those bags broke a gas line, making it twice as dangerous for crews at the scene.

By: Travis Skonseng, WDAY

  • Broken gas line
    • image
    Initial readings showed a toxic level of gas just outside the building. That forced emergency crews to stay away from the scene for about 45 minutes.
  • Sandbags cause collapse

Fire officials finally had a chance to get inside this building, earlier this evening, to look at the scene. It took more than two hours after the collapse, because the quality of air was so bad, it was simply unsafe to go near or in the vacant warehouse.

After hours of hard work there was an unexpected turn on this first day of sandbagging in Fargo.

“The weight of the sandbags collapsed the floor.”

Five workers, with Reilley's Transfer, were piling pallets of sandbags along the east wall of the old Sugar Sand Marine. The heated building is one of the sites being used by the city of Fargo to store sandbags, so far about five thousand of them.

“When the floor collapsed, it broke the natural gas pipe.”

Dozens of firefighters, police, and hazmat came on scene within minutes. They shut off the gas.

“They opened up; started ventilating with big fans and working with monitors to check so we don't have explosive levels of gas in the building.”

Initial readings showed a toxic level of gas just outside the building. That forced emergency crews to stay away from the scene for about 45 minutes. Police blocked off surrounding roads.

“They cleared the area in case we had an explosion and moved as many people away as they could.”

Officials are now looking at how safe the structure of the building is and hoping to get heat back on. The building had been vacant for about a year and a half. None of the workers was hurt.

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