UPDATE: Several homeowners still evacuated because of collapsing retaining wall
Residents in a Colorado Springs neighborhood are still out of their homes because of a collapsing retaining wall.
Rain and flooding caused concrete blocks to tumble down from a retaining wall at the top of a hill on 26th Street on Tuesday night.The wall collapsed even more early Saturday morning.
“I ran back here and the whole wall slid down about 20 or 30 feet,” neighborLeif Lenberg said. “Things just go from bad to worse.”
The man who built the wall, Steve Hennings, told KRDO NEWSCHANNEL 13 in June 2014 that he built the wall behind his home to protect his neighbors from runoff.
Hennings received a building permit for the wall in May 2014, but it was revoked in July 2014. In December, he received a non-compliance certificate. The Pikes Peak Regional Building Department said Hennings didn’t request inspections during construction, and he built a wall nearly twice as high as he was given permission to build.
“The engineering differences between a 20ft tall wall and a 36ft tall are quite significant,” Director of Building Operations Roger Lovell said.
The city’s public works director declared the wall unsafe. Although the situation is a private property issue, the city is stepping in.
“We’re reaching out to specialized contractors who deal with this work,” Travis Easton said. “Since it is a private property issue, there is a due process that needs to be followed. we’re also giving the homeowner the chance to get in and fix it themselves.”
City crews continued to monitor the damage on Saturday.
“We were watching some bulges towards the bottom of the wall and it looks like that’s where the failure happened and the wall slid down from the bottom,” Colorado Springs City Streets Division manager Corey Farkas said.”If those blocks would have failed at the top, they could’ve tumbled down the hill and we could have had some catastrophic property loss.”
Homeowners hope the situation is fixed soon. Evacuees don’t know when they’ll be allowed back home.
