Click2Houston is now reporting that the garage at Elgin and Milam streets behind the 24 Hour Fitness at 3201 Louisiana St. “sustained heavy structural damage” after 3 cars parked inside caught on fire this morning. The confusing sounds of popping tires had some bystanders running for cover as flames were blazing, a reader tells Swamplot; with the fire out now, police are on site, along with 3 fire marshal Priuses now parked along Milam.
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The garage serves all the retail business in the Mix at Midtown building, including Artisans restaurant, Dolce Delights, and Piola, as well as neighboring High Fashion Home.
- 3 vehicles burned when fire breaks out in parking garage of fitness center [Click2Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Artisans Filling Out the Mix in Midtown; Midtown Mix: Fit for Leasing
Photos: Ayn Morgan (bottom photo); Adam Brackman (others)
The Fire Mix at Midtown
How does a concrete and steel parking structure sustain heavy structural damage from a couple of cars on fire?
Is it about to collapse like WTC Building 7?
Is this similar to what happened at Chase Tower? Cars I fire in the parking garage, that is?
There is a long list of vehicle recalls that are due to the risk of the vehicle catch on fire when it is parked. Cars can and do catch on fire when they are just sitting in a parking lot or garage. But, it is very, very rare. This is the second car fire in a big garage four days and barely two miles apart.
Yea Tetris. One car caught in the Chase garage and ignited three others. Some people still couldn’t get there cars out as of this morning, but I hope they can now. My office looks over it so I tried to send swamplot pics but the email was too big. I had one pic with 14 HFD cars in it. In total I counted over 25 (some of which were suburbans) and that doesn’t even include HPD.
Steel weakens considerably under heat. In some of the photos, you can see the joists warped.
Yes, it could have collapsed like WTC 7 if the fire had not been contained. Because this was an small, open parking garage, fire protection was not required on the steel.
Sorry Jeromy but even though car fires can get considerably hotter than office fires, there is no way that parking structure, or any steel structure, could collapse symmetrically into its own footprint at free-fall speed like WTC7 did due to any fires.
Imagine every car parked there getting pancaked simultaneously due to a couple of cars somewhere in the middle that were on fire. Lots of people would be asking some serious questions about how that would be possible.
medical center apt garage fire: http://cw39.com/2015/05/04/car-fire-in-underground-garage-forces-evacuation-of-houston-condos/
Dana-x,
One word. Science.
Your words, free-fall, symmetrical, and footprint are just conspiracy theory talking points.
Jeromy…science means allowing your peers in the scientific community to see and have access to your findings. NIST’s finding of a fire-induced collapse was created with their own computer model which they have PROHIBITED anyone from examining..citing “public safety” concerns are their reason. This is not science.
And calling legitimate questions “conspiracy theories” are used to deflect intelligent discussion and examination and have nothing to do with whether the event in question is true or false.
I call dibs on the tin foil hat when Dana is done with it. Speaking of nut jobs, I wonder if these car fires could possibly be arson?
Jeromy: Two lessons here: (1) Don’t feed the trolls; and (2) There is no cure for stupid.
Excuse me now while I get into my black, unmarked helicopter and head to the secret base where we are storing the “real” 9/11 airplanes, and everyone that was on them. Bye!
I think we can all agree that the garage at Elgin and Milam was an inside job, definitely a false flag operation by our city council as a means to justify an invasion of new mattress stores into Montrose. This all comes back to the all powerful Mattress Lobby and the Mattress Industrial Complex. If you look close you can even see signs at the location talking about the LOW LOW PRICES 299 QUEEN SET. All you mattress shills trying to cover this up, we’re onto you!
Hey Al…why use insults? Why not just explain why WTC 7 didn’t fall symmetrically, hitting free-fall speeds an into its own footprint? Explain it too use. I don’t want to be stupid anymore. Intelligent people want to know too…..
And I’d still like to hear how Jeromy thinks this parking structure was in danger of a global collapse. Not a word so far..
Maybe Dana X is trying to be Dana Scully.
There’s an arsonist on the loose in Midtown..
Al,
I thought I was being the troll.