A section of scaffolding collapsed Friday morning at a Strip District construction site, damaging multiple vehicles.
The developer of the six-story, mixed-use building told TribLive it’s “too soon to say” whether gusty winds triggered it.
No injuries were reported after the scaffolding fell around 10 a.m., according to the developer and Pittsburgh public safety officials.
“There wasn’t really a public safety response beyond EMS, as no one was hurt and no one was on the structure when it collapsed,” Cara Cruz, a public safety spokeswoman, told TribLive.
Debris from the collapse hit multiple cars near the 1.2-acre construction site, which sits at the intersection of 26th and Railroad streets, said Lesley Koth, a spokeswoman for development firm Merus.
Merus is building The Mercer, a development that will have 199 apartment units and more than 3,000 square feet of retail in the city’s Strip District neighborhood.
The firm opened an office in 2003 in Pittsburgh, where it said it has built 3.6 million square feet of housing, office and retail space.
On Friday afternoon, Koth could not ballpark the extent of the damage. She said the site had been secured and all workers accounted for.
Koth said it was too early to tell whether the wind caused the collapse.
“We’re not going to jump to any conclusions. We’re going to investigate,” Koth said.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which deals with workplace accidents, has started an investigation into the incident, a spokesman told TribLive.
The agency has six months to complete the investigation.
Wind gusts neared 50 mph Friday morning in parts of Allegheny County, said Alicia Miller, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Moon office.
By 2:30 p.m., a snow squall warning was in effect, Miller said.
That warning was issued because snow was falling rapidly, motorists had reduced visibility, and the weather was causing what Miller called a “flash sleet freeze” on Pittsburgh-area roads.
The warning extended into parts of Butler and Beaver counties.
The strongest wind gust — at 49 mph — was reported Friday morning at a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation facility in Robinson, Miller said.
