A chunk of the Portsmouth Pavilion pier roughly the size of a basketball court came crashing down Monday evening, sending police to the waterfront venue just before midnight to find a massive slab of concrete caved in where VIP guests normally gather. Nobody has said yet what caused it, and the venue has not detailed what happens next.
Police responded to the Portsmouth Pavilion around 11:30 p.m. Monday night, according to WAVY.com. Officers arrived to discover that an approximately 100-foot-by-50-foot section of the concrete pier in the VIP area had partially collapsed, the station reported.
City officials confirmed the collapse but said the circumstances and cause remain under investigation, per the same report. No further details about what triggered the failure, or what condition the pier was in beforehand, have been released.
A Waterfront Venue Built for Banquets and Big Crowds
The Portsmouth Pavilion is described by the city as a 6,500-capacity outdoor entertainment venue, according to Portsmouth's city government. Its waterside pier and VIP section are part of what makes the venue a draw for events along the riverfront.
With the cause still unclear, the collapse raises the kind of structural questions that have surfaced at other piers and public venues recently. In New Jersey, Ocean City issued a notice of unsafe structure to the developer and owner of Wonderland Pier after signs of collapse there, according to the Inquirer. And near Yale Medical School, a concrete-pouring mishap left at least seven people injured in a partial building collapse, NBC News reported. The incidents offer separate examples of structural problems at a pier and a construction site.
Who Oversees Building Safety in Virginia
Under Virginia law, responsibility for inspecting buildings under construction and reviewing building plans to enforce the state's Uniform Statewide Building Code falls to local building inspectors, rather than state authorities, for any structure that isn't state-owned, according to the Virginia General Assembly. That provision addresses construction inspections and plan review; it does not determine who is responsible for inspecting the existing pier or investigating its collapse.
For now, the extent of the damage and the reason the pier gave way remain open questions as the investigation continues. City officials have not released a timeline for when more information will be available.
