NEW ORLEANS — During a press conference Sunday evening, City officials said rescue teams have recovered a body in the rubble at the Hard Rock Hotel collapse site.
Rescue teams have made several entries throughout the day Sunday. New Orleans Fire Department Chief Tim McConnell said rescue teams are still looking for others and will continue well into the night.
"Teams have gone in with search dogs and detection equipment," McConnell said. "All below the 8th floor because the upper floors everything above that is what collapsed and is unstable."
City officials are meeting with engineers to figure out how to secure the crane at the collapse site. The scene has to be safe enough for on going rescue operations.
"We aren't able to place people in that area until the crane is secured, McConnell said. "If it started moving it could take down the rest of the building."
New Orleans Police Chief Shaun Ferguson said he was concerned about the effect traffic will have on rescues operation and vice versa.
"There will be a lot of traffic," the police chief said. "Officers will be placed in high traffic areas. Please be patient. Leave a little earlier."
The attempt to rescue a worker still missing inside the Hard Rock Hotel, as well as to recover the two other workers who have passed away in the rubble, is a dangerous and laborious endeavor that is moving faster than expected, but not nearly fast enough for those still clinging to hope that their loved ones are OK.
Just over 24 hours after the under-construction hotel partially collapsed, two support cranes were being assembled to stabilize the building to prevent further danger and to allow for the rescue and recovery attempts to continue.
McConnell said the two massive cranes were initially expected to take two weeks to arrive. He said they arrived in less than 24 hours after being taken down from a job site in northern Baton Rouge, disassembled, brought to New Orleans with a police escort and then re-assembled here.
“The crane was massive – 110 tons and moving it on a highway is not something that is normally allowed,” McConnell said Sunday morning. “We got state escorts and it is being put in place as we speak.”
McConnell and Mayor LaToya Cantrell emphasized the attempted rescue of the unaccounted for person is the top priority, but that the extremely dangerous situation meant that safeguards had to be ready for those entering the building as well.
“Safety is a number one thing,” said McConnell. “You don’t want, as you try to rescue someone, to lose someone else.”
Cantrell emphasized that the entire area around the collapse was not safe. She said that Entergy had cut the power to 10 buildings in the immediate area and she said those buildings would be out of commission for some time.
“It’s not safe right now,” she said. “It’s not stable. We cannot overestimate the structure being unsound, unstable right now.”
RELATED: Evacuation ordered for area surrounding Hard Rock Hotel collapse; other streets closed nearby
Cantrell and McConnell advised commuters who work in the area, or use the streets around the hotel area to get to or from work, to find an alternate route.
Engineers with the construction company, identified by Cantrell as Citadel, a German company, were flying to the area, but had not arrived as of Sunday morning, due to travel issues.
Cantrell continued to emphasize the importance of those who were killed and those who were injured. The city said that 30 people went to the hospital in the wake of the collapse, and that all but one had been discharged.
The remaining worker was visited by the mayor around midnight. She said he underwent surgery on his femur and was stable. She said his family was coming to the city and that his first concern was for the two workers he was with at the time.
She said he told her, through tears, that it could have been much worse.
“I told him, ‘I have to touch you,’” she recalled. “He matters. People matter. He was an employee working on the eighth floor. He said it happened very fast. He heard a noise, looked around and moved very quickly.”
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.