ALSO | McCallum High School pleas for fans on Thursday after experiencing A\/C issues<\/a><\/p>\nThe man who died at the scene was identified as a man in his 30s. <\/p>\n
The man who was rescued was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center by STAR Flight with potentially serious injuries, according to Austin-Travis County EMS. His current condition is unknown at this time.<\/p>\n
Once the weather passed, a structural engineer helped lift the house again to retrieve the body.<\/p>\n
Officials say that the workers were framing the house, and that the structure did not have the supports it needed to withstand the high winds. Travis County ESD 5 reported that a neighbor living next door to the collapsed building said that the winds “were so intense the trees were blowing sideways,” and that she had heard a loud boom at the time of collapse.<\/p>\n
Officials say that the area had experienced 50 to 70 mph straight-line winds. Radar from the time of the 911 call shows one very small storm right over the neighborhood where the home collapsed. <\/p>\n
No severe thunderstorm warning was issued; CBS Austin Meteorologist Avery Tomasco says that the storm developed only minutes before it began producing strong microburst wind gusts.<\/p>\n
KB Home confirmed in a statement Friday that the victim was an employee of one of its subcontractors, writing:<\/p>\n
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the worker\u2019s family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time. Construction at the site was suspended immediately. A second employee of the subcontractor was injured as a result of the accident and taken to the hospital where he is recovering. KB Home wants to thank local emergency personnel for their quick response to the incident, and we are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Travis County ESD 5 says there is a criminal investigation into the incident, as well as an investigation by OSHA. OSHA says that they are investigating the incident and “has up to six months to complete that process.”<\/p>\n
The Travis County Sheriff’s Office says that, at this point in the investigation, there is “no indication” of foul play.<\/p>\n
Zhenyu Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Construction Science at Texas A&M University, said an investigation will likely examine factors like the contractor’s emergency management plans.<\/p>\n
“I think they are mostly looking for the evidence to determine if they need to issue citations and if yes, how many citations,” Zhang said.<\/p>\n
Zhang added that traditionally, someone on a worksite is tasked with tracking changing conditions, such as weather.<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service first issued a severe thunderstorm warning in Travis County, which included a hazardous wind warning, at 4:55 p.m. on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A man is dead after a house under construction collapsed in south Austin due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-421243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}