Another Chicago big loss of life accident

[Dan Murphy]

Last night, several (3) back porches on a single Wrigleyville 3-flat appartment, overloaded with partying college kids, collasped and pancaked onto each other. Current casualties are 12 dead, around 40 injured, of that, about 10 critical. Please keep these kids and families in your thoughts and prayers this Sunday. Thanks.

Chicago Tribune link
MSNBC
CNN, with a link to some photos

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

Oh Dan, how tragic. I know I'll be thinking about them all day, and will keep them in my prayers.

 

[Blondie]

So tragic, and so senseless.

 

[Serena]

That's awful.

 

[chell]

Very sad.

 

[helenabear]

That is so very sad and so tragic

 

[Poohbear123]

I saw the News reports on this, they said it was 2 porches and one fell on top of the others....tragic. I believe it was stated that there were more than 50 people on the porches? They all graduated from the sme High School too.

 

[hercamore]

Oh no, poor familiies!

have two college age kids in the Mpls University area. And I can see this happening there easlly too with all those old houses they rent to kids that are half falling apart.

herc.

.

 

[Saffron]

Oh my gosh, how tragic.

 

[vald1977]

That's so sad.

 

[mamajoan]

Thanks for the link,Dan.

So sorry to hear that a joyful time met with such a tragedy.

 

[Trinity721]

My prayers are with those kids and their families. I didn't even hear about this until I read your post, and then I turned on the TV.

I go to school at Loyola, which is just several streets down from Wrigleyville, and the apartments in that area including the apartment I lived in last year all had those back porches. Many of the apartments are old, and so I wouldn't call these back porches safe places to hold a large number of people. I used to go to some of these parties, but always kept clear of those porches. People don't realize how unstable the structure can be.

This is tragic, my heart goes out to the victims and their families.

 

[KrnB]

I read about that this morning - how sad!

I can see how it happened too. I remember going to parties in college that would have been deadly if a fire broke out because there were way too many people in the apartment. Most of our cruddy places didn't have porches/decks/balconies (too rich for our blood...), so this exact incident wouldn't have happened. But scores of other problems could have happened.

The people throwing the party don't think about fire hazards and such - they're just thinking that they're getting a lot of money for beer cups and that they'll become legendary for having great parties with lots of people. The "it will never happen to me" syndrome.

What a tough way to learn a lesson. My heart goes out to the victims, both those that were injured/killed and those that lost their friends, and of course to the victims' families.

 

[NHAnn]

How horrible and tragic

 

[dtuleya]

So very sad and tragic.

 

[Bunchkin]

This was off of Fulerton and my sister lives just north a couple blocks off of Montrose.
And I can tell you first hand none of these back porches are safe.
There are some by my sisters that are really nice but the buildings have all been converted to condos and all the porches rebuilt into nice decks.

Very sad.

 

[Sandy51]

What a tragedy. I know in the last 18 months or so, there have been 2 incidents here in WV similar to this, although there were no deaths. Decks collapsed from too many people on them.

Sandy