Scaffolding fell in the 8300 block of 160th Avenue Northeast in downtown Redmond during Thursday night’s storm.

The scaffolding was from a construction site and struck the LionsGate North Apartments located across the street from the site, said Janessa Rosick, public information coordinator for the Redmond Police Department (RPD).

Part of 160th Avenue Northeast between Northeast 83rd Street and Northeast 85th Street was already closed Thursday night because the construction company, Compass General Construction in Kirkland, was scheduled to remove a crane Friday morning.

NO INJURIES, MINIMAL DAMAGE

There were no injuries, but six apartment units at LionsGate were evacuated after they were determined to be unsafe by RPD as well as the Redmond Fire Department (RFD) and City of Redmond Public Works Department — who all responded to the incident — Rosick said.

There were seven people living in the six single-family units.

“Thankfully, no injuries,” Rosick said.

She said the residents were moved to the Hyatt House Seattle/Redmond for the night and Compass will be covering the cost.

The tenants were allowed back into their apartments by Friday morning, she said.

Rosick said when the scaffolding fell at around 8:10 p.m., winds were at an estimated 20 mph and still had not reached their peak speed for the night.

The portion of scaffolding that fell was about 30 feet across and six stories high. It toppled all the way across 160th Avenue Northeast and struck the canopy of the LionsGate apartment building. Dan Selin, one of the vice presidents at Compass, said the property damage to the canopy is minimal, at about $2,000.

As he surveyed the scene and watched the crane removal in progress on Friday morning, Selin added that they worked through the night to clean up the fallen scaffolding, which was piled up on a sidewalk. Compass plans to start rebuilding the scaffolding next week.

Sages Restaurant, an Italian-European eatery not far up the street from the LionsGate canopy at 15916 N.E. 83rd St., was not struck. Selin said there had been diners inside the restaurant at the time.

Sages owner Bart Kuliczkowski was in the kitchen cooking pork marsala when he felt the floor shaking and heard a rumble, which he thought was a car accident at first.

“There was a large group of ladies at one table and I heard the ladies screaming. Everyone just ran outside to see what happened,” said Kuliczkowski, who added that there were about 12 to 13 tables full of 30 guests, in addition to seven employees, in the restaurant.

People filed back into the restaurant, finished their meals and Sages closed at 9 p.m. as always. Everyone was fine, the owner said, but one of his waitresses was a little more emotionally drained than others. He added that Sages was open at 11:30 a.m. for its regularly scheduled lunch last Friday.

In addition to what had fallen, Rosick said there was still some scaffolding that had not completely detached and was secured at the construction site.

SCENE OF THE INCIDENT

Kristen Brewer, who lives nearby in the 15100 block of Northeast 82nd Street, said while she did not witness the scaffolding falling or stop by the scene after she learned of the incident, she did hear many sirens from emergency vehicles at the time.

Brewer works at the QFC on Redmond Way just southwest of where the scaffolding fell and said one of her coworkers was getting off work around the time of the incident and heard it. She said her coworker saw people coming out of Ooba Tooba Mexican Grill (15802 N.E. 83rd St.), to see what had happened. Brewer’s coworker drove to the site and said the scaffolding was “covering the entire road from the building under construction to the buildings across the street.”

The building under construction is mixed-use and will be six stories high with parking, commercial space and residential units — the latter will be on the top four levels — said Jason Lynch with the City of Redmond’s Planning Department.

Lynch said the project is about halfway done.

RE-CERTIFYING FOR SAFETY

After the scaffolding was pulled down from Thursday’s winds, Lynch said the remaining scaffolding on the building — even the undamaged portions — was re-certified and verified to be safe. Lynch said this re-certifying was done by a third party. The third party involved in this case was Safway, LLC. he said.

“It’s not inspected by city staff,” Lynch said.

All of the scaffolding around the building has been re-certified and deemed safe, Lynch said, adding that how secure scaffolding needs to be to withstand high winds depends on its height.

Selin said Compass has never experienced tumbling scaffolding on one of its projects before.

“The scaffold’s engineered and it’s rated for certain wind loads. I can’t tell you exactly where the wind gusts were, but obviously it was above what was anticipated,” he said. “There’s ties that hold it to the building, so it’s not an independent thing. It’s just a freak wind caught that corner.”

Rosick said 160th Avenue Northeast was closed from Northeast 83rd Street to Northeast 85th Street as the construction crew worked to clear the debris. In addition, eastbound lanes along Northeast 83rd Street were closed from 158th Avenue Northeast to 160th Avenue Northeast and westbound lanes along Northeast 83rd Street from 161st Avenue Northeast to 160th Avenue Northeast were also closed.

All roads were reopened over the weekend.

LionsGate management declined to comment on the story.