Questions surround collapse; victims ID'd, rescue efforts end

City officials identified the victims in Wednesday's building collapse as emergency crews completed their rescue operations Thursday around 4:45 p.m.

The six people killed were: Anne Bryan, Roseline Conteh, Borbor Davis, Kimberly Finnegan, Juanita Harmin and Mary Simpson. The city did not provide ages or addresses.

Injured were Margarita Agosta, Shirley Ball, Linda Bell, Betty Brown, Rodney Geddis, Felicia Hill, Daniel Johnson, Rosemary Kreutzberg, and Myra Plekan, Susan Randall, Jennifer Reynolds, Richard Stasiorowski and Nadine White.

Plekan was pulled from the rubble in critical condition Wednesday night, shortly before midnight -- 13 hours after a three-story buidling at 2136 Market Street flattened the adjoining, one-story Salvation Army thrift shop.

Nutter also praised the civilians, by name, who rushed into the building to rescue victims immediately after the collapse.

"Reports yesterday identified a number of individuals who took quick action, including Jordan McLauglin, Ray Kauffman, Bill Roam, Patrick Glynn and Brian Mullins. On behalf of the City, I want to thank them for their quick thinking and courage," Nutter said.

As investigations of the collapse intensify, city officials conceded Thursday that there is no requirement for inspectors to check on demolition sites while work is underway.

Licenses and Inspections Commissioner Carlton Williams, at a news conference Thursday morning, said inspections are only required before work begins and once it is finished, but he left unclear whether the pre-inspection was ever done at the former Hoagie City building at 2136 Market Street. Williams walked away while reporters were pressing him to clarify the situation.

Williams said the city code does not require applicants for a permit to show any special qualifications. The demolition contractor, Griffin T. Campbell, was convicted of insurance fraud in 2009.

When asked if "anyone with $300 and a pick-up truck" could get a demolition permit, Nutter said, "The short answer is 'No.' "

Williams said that in response to a citizen complaint on the city's 311 line, an L & I inspector had visited the adjoining building at 2134 Market  on May 14.  That building was also being torn down by the same contractor, and the inspector had no objections to the work, Williams said.  At that time, no demolition had begun on 2136 Market, Williams said.

The Salvation Army Thrift store collapsed Wednesday when the wall of 2136 toppled onto it, trapping the victims and prompting bystanders to rush to the rescue.

Williams said no other complaints had been received before Wednesday.

Nutter said everything surrounding the demolition work that apparently caused Wednesday's deadly collapse is the subject of a wide ranging investigation involving L&I, the Police and Fire Departments and the District Attorney's Office. On Thursday afternoon, Nutter announced an aggressive inspection campaign, including on Wednesday all four construction and demolition sites connected to Griffin Campbell Construction, the demolition contractor at the 2136-38 Market Street site. The city slapped the contractor with violations at two sites, 1300 Walnut Street and 320 Butler Street, and issued stop-work orders at those sites.

The Department of Licenses and Inspections "is also undertaking proactive inspections of all active private demolition sites throughout the City," the Mayor's Office said in a press release. About 100 demolition permits have been issued this year, according to the Mayor's Office. As of Thursday, the Department had inspected about 30 of 300 sites with open demolition permits issued since 2009, the release stated.

The federal Occupational Safet and Health Administration, which is also investigating the collapse, confirmed it has an open inspection initiated in May 15 in response to a complaint of falling hazards at the demolition site. An agency spokeswoman said the agency has no history involving Campbell prior to that inspection.

Pat Gillespie, head of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, said two union members who were working at the nearby Mutter Museum contacted both OSHA and L&I the day before the collapse about the problems they had seen at the site.

The union workers did this after walking to the site and complaining to the workers there about the danger. The union members were ignored by the people at the site, Gillespie said.

OSHA and city officials made no mention of receiving any complaints on Tuesday.

Whether or not Nutter in the meantime said the collapse scene remains the subject of an active search, although police and firefighters have temporarily halted picking through the rubble.

Just before the news conference began, work crews with heavy equipment started removing walls standing near the 25 percent of the site that Nutter said needs to still be searched.

"The operation going on now is the making safe of the search area" Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said.

Rescue crews had picked through the piled of rubble through the night under bright lights before withdrawing about 4:30 a.m

Three of the six fatalties were identified Thursday afternoon. The Salvation Army said two employees -- Borbor Davis, 68, and Kimberly Finnegan, 35 -- were among the dead. In an email to alumni, the Penn Charter private school said Anne Bryan, daughter of City Treasurer Nancy E. Winkler, also died.

Nutter said the names of all the deceased would be released later Thursday.

Battalion Chief Charles Lepre had said earlier everyone who had been reported missing had been accounted for.

The biggest drama of the night came about 11:45 p.m. when a rescue worker heard a cry from under debris at the front of the store and firefighters carefully uncovered Myra Plekam, 61, of Philadelphia.

She was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was reported in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit Thursday morning.

HUP said that the five other victims of the collapse brought there for treatment, three others — two women and one man — remained under observation in stable condition.

Plekam's rescue was one of those miracle moments.

A firefighter, who wouldn't give his name, was one of the people who helped get Plekam out from under the rubble.

"She was pretty well buried," he said. To free her, he and his colleagues had to  cut through metal and pipes, and peel back plaster and wire lath. Then, the workers had to keep her spine as straight as possible as they slowly moved her into a waiting ambulance, which took her to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The firefighter's bunker gear -the suit they wear to fires and other disasters - was caked in dust. Like rings in a tree core show indicates its age, the amount of dust on firefighters' bunker gear betrays how long they had been at the scene. This firefighter had been there for 12 hours worth of dust.

He looked as tired as he was, but his kids think their dad's work is "great - daddy's a hero" and his wife is used to him being away on risky missions from his time in the military. So he felt good Thursday night, being able to help even one person. He wasn't so sure, though, what fate awaited Plekam. Amazed that she had survived 12 hours amid the remains of the thrift store, he wasn't so sure she would live through the night, the next day.

After that rescue, the night became as quiet as it could be within the closed of blocks surrounding the collapse site.

Rescue workers walked over the rubble toward the front of the store, poking at it to make sure no people were where an excavator opened its claw and grabbed a giant mouthful of clothing, building materials and other rubble. The excavator then swung around and dropped its load into a dump truck. In one such swing, when the claw was highest in the air, a wedding dress dangled from its teeth. Two dump trucks got filled and left.

Red Cross workers walked around offering food and drinks. Teresa Glatthorn, of Horsham, said she had bottled water, oranges, chips and granola bars to give to whoever needed them.

Also there, but only for the firefighters, were the workers known as "second responders." They carried jugs of what's known as "bug juice," a lime syrup drink that helps replenish the emergency workers and give them a sugary energy boost.

Though Buster the 1-year-old, 93-pound English mastiff service dog - it's trained, among other things, to look for cadavers - was being walked near the collapse site by his owner, Don Davis, it would get no bug juice. Buster seemed okay with that.

As all this happened on the periphery, the steam shovel kept scooping up rubble as a firefighter, the fire hose between his legs, blasted water to keep dust down.

As a shift-change neared, the firefighter who helped pull out Plekam was anticipating all the aches and pains he would feel by Friday. All the twisting, and pulling, and bending and standing takes its toll, as does, for some, the emotional toll on rescue workers of finding bodies and pulling out wounded survivors.

Lepre said teams of critical incident specialists would work with them on those issues.

About 3:30 a.m., Lepre noted one great irony. The parking garage that still stands next to the building that was being demolished housed what was known in the 1940s as the insurance patrol. Insurance companies would call on the patrols to go to the scenes of fires at one of their insured properties, to salvage as much as possible.