Chicago porch collapse

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CHICAGO (June 29) - The overloaded third-floor porch of an apartment building collapsed during a party early Sunday, sending people and debris crashing to the ground. Twelve young people were killed and as many as 35 others were injured, authorities said.

There may have been dozens of people on the third-floor porch when it collapsed shortly past midnight, knocking the second-floor deck to the ground as well and trapping some people in a basement stairwell, authorities said.

''There was chaos,'' Chicago Fire Commissioner James Joyce said of the scene that greeted the first emergency workers to arrive. ''There were people screaming and crying in the alley.''

Joyce said 11 people were pronounced dead at the scene and 35 others were taken to area hospitals. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office later confirmed that another person was pronounced dead at Advocate Illinois Medical Center.

The collapse occurred in the Wrigleyville neighborhood on the city's North Side.

''It was simply a case of too many people in a small space,'' Joyce said.

Fina Cannon, a young woman who was at the party, said a large number of people had been on the third-floor porch, and others were on the second-floor porch. She said all the guests were in their early 20s, and many had graduated several years ago from New Trier High School in Chicago's northern suburbs.

Cannon told Chicago cable television station CLTV that she had entered the building from the rear porch area, but avoided the decks after getting to the party. She said she was in the back kitchen, looking out at the porch when it collapsed.

''All of a sudden I saw all these heads going down,'' Cannon said. ''The floor just dropped out from underneath them. They all went down in unison.''

Michelle Myers, the mother of one young man who had been on the porch, said her son managed to jump to the kitchen doorway as the floor gave way.

Joyce, the fire commissioner, issued a message of caution about safety during Chicago's annual Gay Pride Parade, which was scheduled for later Sunday in the same general neighborhood.

''It's a tragic case of overloading the back porches,'' he said. ''We have concern over tomorrow (Sunday). We know that tomorrow is a big day in this community with the parade, and we urge everyone to use common sense and not overload the porches.''

Chicago Police said as many as 40 or 50 people may have been on the porch at the time of the collapse - far more than the building's decks are designed to hold, according to neighbors.

''The porches back there could probably facilitate 20 to 30 people,'' said one neighbor, Dr. David Guelich, an orthopedic surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where some of the victims were taken.

Witnesses said the rails of the third-floor porch were still in place several hours after the collapse, but the floor had fallen out completely.

Neighbors said they saw emergency workers using chain saws to cut through the debris to get to the victims.

AP-NY-06-29-03 0622EDT

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