NORTH BAY VILLAGE, Fla. – North Bay Village leaders were unable to say for certain Monday whether the deck at Shuckers Bar & Grill that collapsed last Thursday has ever been inspected.
The collapse, which happened during Game 4 of the NBA Finals, injured 24 people.
"The only thing we can tell you is that it collapsed," Raul Rodriguez, the village's chief building official, said during a news conference.
Rodriguez wasn't sure how many people the deck was designed to carry.
"Well, the engineer numbers is -- I have no idea what those are," he said.
Rodriguez also couldn't explain why a safety report made in January stated the hotel was structurally safe, but the engineer never mentioned the deck. Only pictures of the deck were included in the report.
"In my view, the fact that he put pictures of the deck in that report -- he should have inspected it," said Rodriguez. "If he didn't get paid for it, sorry about that. The inspection, the way I see it, the deck is part of it."
Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps first refused to answer questions because it was too hot outside. She then answered some questions from inside her car.
"So far, we're doing whatever we can, yes," said Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps. "My staff is working very hard and diligently in order to get to the bottom of this. I'm very concerned, absolutely very concerned, and my heart goes out to all those victims."
Drawings for a new deck called for eight 10-inch slabs of concrete and a pair of 12-by-12 concrete piles buried deep into Biscayne Bay that would distribute the weight of the new deck. It would've cost $30,000 to build but the work was never done.