(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — An expert on maintaining building exteriors is urging building owners to check for warning signs before it's too late.
The warning comes after parts of buildings fell on people in Wicker Park and Garfield Park in recent days.
Todd Gorrell is a principal architect at Klein and Hoffman, which specializes in maintaining and repairing building exteriors. He said building owners should look for signs of water penetrating exterior walls.
Gorrell said warning signs include bulging walls, cracks and building pieces that are falling off.
Building owners should call in a professional as soon as possible to inspect visual damage, and have inspections every two years to find hidden problems before it's too late to correct them.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday blamed a West Side porch collapse that killed a man and seriously injured two others on a “family home” that a brother and sister could not afford to maintain.
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She used the tragedy to underscore the need to solve Chicago’s affordable housing crisis and to help impoverished residents make the repairs and routine maintenance they need to stay in their homes.
“What we learned is that a sister and a brother who were living in the family home had fallen on hard times and were not able to keep up the upkeep of their property,” the mayor said. “As fate would have it, a truss at the top of the building failed. Part of the façade fell down as they were sitting outside enjoying the warm weather.”
Anthony Wright, 53, was pulled from under the stone debris and pronounced dead, fire officials and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. His sister was examined at the scene but was not hospitalized.
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A 68-year-old man was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital with “crush injuries.” A third man, 32, was taken to Stroger Hospital with a broken left leg and injured back, officials said.
Last week, a 22-year-old woman was critically injured when the facade of a Wicker Park building collapsed and covered her in debris. Attorneys for the hospitalized woman say scaffolding that had been erected at the site was not sufficient.
Contributing: Chicago Sun-Times Media Wire