The 2600 block of Live Oak has been closed for a month after a construction crane blew over in June’s freak storm, crashing into the Elan City Lights apartment complex. A woman was killed. Residents were evacuated and told the building was too structurally unsound to allow them to go back in and get their belongings. Investigations into the accident are ongoing.
Everyone who was affected by the incident is living in a horrible limbo, wondering if they will ever be able to retrieve the pieces of their lives that are trapped in an apartment block that has come to epitomize 21st century papier-mâché city building. Everyone, that is, except for the construction company whose crane fell over.
According to CBS 11, the construction company working on building Elan City Lights Phase 2 are not letting the catastrophe slow them down. In fact, they have been taking advantage of the closed street while residents and business owners have been locked out. Construction crews are even using the closed block to store construction materials.
That, understandably, is frustrating to residents and business owners, like a Dallas tattoo artist whose business has dropped 40 percent since the crane closed his section of Live Oak:
“If anything, having a road closed for them is allowing them to work twice as fast and I believe that’s going to help their timeline and hinder ours,” said [Rudy] Hetzer. “Now looking out and seeing it consumed by the workers who are building this building, now it definitely frustrates me a little bit. It’s hard to stay positive and motivated when you know that you’re being suffocated.”
The company that owns Elan City Lights told CBS 11 there is “a lot of work going on behind the scenes” to help rectify the situation. I’m sure there is.
Read or watch the full report here.
