MU has ordered a safety inspection of all university-owned and leased buildings beginning Monday in response to a deadly structural collapse over the weekend.
Just after 4 am on Saturday morning, residents in University Village apartments were woken by a loud banging sound as the balcony walkway outside their doors collapsed. Firefighters soon arrived to help residents evacuate. None of the 18 inhabitants were injured, but responding firefighter Bruce Britt was killed.
Following the collapse, MU has ordered a safety inspection of the more than 250 university buildings this week. Several University Village residents say they had safety concerns about their apartments before Saturday.
Mahdieh Tootschi is a resident of University Village. “It was an old building, and we expected, all the residents expected something like this because of all those rusted beams and the crashes and crack on the concrete," she says.
Tootschi is pleased with how the university has taken care of displaced residents during and after the accident. However, she says the incident could have been prevented if they had listened to complaints from building residents and from the complex’s manager about the safety of the walkways.
