So, the inspector has been out sick for 6 months, and no one has taken over the job?
It probably wouldn't have made any difference, though. If the parking garage was built in 1920, the same time as the office building, it's not likely much changed visually from 2015.
I'm not seeing any rebar sticking out of the failure plane on either side. Looks like maybe there was grout in the hollow core at the joint with the remaining slab, but how was the slab supported by the beam and columns at the edge of the slab? An unreinforced corbel of some kind?
Yes it appears that if there was a corbel, the reinforcement was very light, or totally rusted away and simply broke off flush with the failure plane.
You can see in this image a hint of the main beam stirrups, but if a corbel sheared off you'd assume you'd see the ends of the corbel bars from the beam sticking out.
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The matter of the city inspector seems like a red herring. The condition would have been well advanced during the 2015 inspection. If it wasn't caught at that time, using those methods, then it wouldn't likely have been caught during an inspection on the eve of the collapse in 2017. It makes one wonder whether the structure is "inspectable" by routine methods or if previous inspectors overlooked signs of steel deterioration such as oxides stains on concrete surfaces and in cracks.
Was the area below the collapse abandoned? From street view, it looks like parking blocks don't allow vehicle entry. And it's certainly not big enough to turn a car around inside there.
From overhead, you can see a nice crack that outlines the area.
azcats - I have wondered the same. Perhaps in a former life, they were service bays of some kind. Going back through Google's Streetview time-machine, if you look at the other garage (Catercorner) in the complex, there seems to be a good deal deterioration to consider, as to whether the city inspector was really doing his job.
