BIDDEFORD — Code Enforcement Officer Roby Fecteau said he will be meeting with the city’s attorney to discuss what action to take following the collapse of a balcony on Saturday in which six people were injured.
According to Fecteau, faulty construction led to the collapse of the balcony at the two-story, three-unit building located at 13 Western Ave.
“We don’t know how we’re going to proceed from this point,” said Fecteau.
The property owners, listed as Gordon and Joyce Mailman in the city assessor’s property record card data base, will be issued some notices of violations of building codes, he said.
Fecteau said he will be contacting the Mailmans this morning and calling in a third party engineer to look at the deck and how it was constructed.
A call reporting the porch collapse came into the Biddeford Fire Department at 11:20 p.m., said Capt. Ricky Dussault.
Mutual aid vehicles from Saco, Goodwin’s Mills, Kennebunk, Arundel, Scarborough and Old Orchard Beach were called in to assist. Six ambulances responded and brought the injured victims to Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford and Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Three of the six people were seriously injured, said Dussault.
He said he doesn’t know their status today and could not release any other information about the victims because of confidentiality laws.
The collapse took place while people were holding some type of celebration, said Dussault. The porch fell on an SUV that was near the porch, said Fecteau, damaging the vehicle in the process.
The porch, said Fecteau, wasn’t properly constructed. There were no lag bolts anchoring the deck to the building, he said, only nails.
There were also “rotting issues” with the structure, said Fecteau.
In addition, he said, the porch did not meet building codes which require such structures to be able to support 100 pounds per square foot.
It’s unclear how many people were on the porch when it collapsed, said Fecteau. There were a minimum of six and reports of as many as 12 people standing on it at the time, he said.
In addition to the improper construction, the property owners did not procure a building permit to build the porch, said Fecteau. According to Fecteau, the two-story, three-unit building was purchased by the Mailmans in 1985.
On Saturday after the incident Fecteau posted the second floor of the building, which has two apartments, as unsafe since the porch was the second means of egress for the second floor tenants.
One apartment was vacant and tenants in the other apartment were required to leave their home. No one will be allowed to inhabit the second floor until a second means of egress is constructed, said Fecteau.
Fecteau noted that he isn’t aware of any prior complaints at the property.
“If my office had a complaint we would have looked at that (porch,)” he said.
This incident will trigger a full inspection of the building, said Fecteau.
Any civil legal action regarding the injuries will take place between the tenants, the injured parties and the property owners, he said.
Fecteau said he predicts the fallout from the situation will be ongoing for a long period.
“At this point,” said Fecteau, “it’s a tumbleweed in the wind, catching a lot of branches. It’s going to get bigger as the wind blows.”
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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