“How do you pick up your entire life in 20 minutes?" said Vannesa Olivo.
That’s all the time Olivo had to gather a lifetime’s worth of memories for her mother and father at their Billingsley Terrace apartment on Friday.
What You Need To Know
- On Friday, the city said an engineer misdiagnosed a structural column as decorative
- The city said it has suspended Richard Koenigsberg of Koenigsberg Engineering’s inspection authority
- Officials want to permanently revoke the engineer’s authority to inspect exterior walls of buildings
- In order to suspend the engineer’s authority, it must go through the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings
“How do you take your grandma’s ashes and just throw them? Like, ‘hurry up, put them in this bag and let’s go.’ And how do I tell my mom she may never come back home?” Olivo said.
Olivo’s parents are just two out of roughly 30 family members who lived in the building before it collapsed on Monday, now scattered between shelters.
“A shelter. A room, an apartment that is empty. Nothing in it, just a bed,” Olivo said.
Olivo said she only has enough room to house about a dozen family members on top of her family of six.
On Friday, the city said an engineer misdiagnosed a structural column as decorative.
“To hear that it was this class of mistake calls into question the ways we are scrutinizing our professionals,” said Councilmember Pierina Sanchez.
Sanchez is chair of the Housing and Buildings Committee. The collapse also happened in her district. She’s now looking into possible oversight committees.
“As a City Council, we’re going to be asking the questions about what was missing. Did we not have enough eyes? Do we not have the right protocols?” Sanchez said.
The city said it has suspended Richard Koenigsberg of Koenigsberg Engineering’s inspection authority.
Officials want to permanently revoke the engineer’s authority to inspect exterior walls of buildings.
NY1 spoke with Koenigsberg. He said he just became aware of the allegations and has no comment at this time.
“How dare they not double check that, and now we’re all in the street for one mistake?” Olivo said.
Now Olivio said a family that once lived together will now be scattered for the holidays.
“It doesn’t look like home for the holidays,” Olivo said.
In order to suspend the engineer’s authority, it must go through the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.
It’s unclear, if these allegations are true, how long that could take.