Damage to downtown Enid building caused by earthquake?

The Broadway Tower has been in Enid since 1931.

It’s the tallest building there, standing 14 stories high.

But, yesterday, some ladies who work across the alley at Paramount Homes noticed some significant damage to the corner of the building.

“'Please, God, don’t fall on top of us!'” thought Jennifer Fugazzi, when she saw it.

An entire section of bricks on the northeast side of the building is bowing out – separated from the concrete structure.

Candi Baker snapped a picture of it, concerned it could be earthquake damage and sent it to Curtis Tucker with Enid Buzz.

“The crack in the building that big caught everybody’s attention,” Tucker said.

“Lately, here in Enid, we’ve had the two morning quakes within the last several weeks, where I mean literally everybody in Enid - your bed shakes, and it wakes you up in the middle of the night," Tucker said. "So, now, people are starting to look at their ceilings and their walls and their brick."

Jeff Brueggemann is a local structural engineer.

The owner of Broadway Tower called him to look at the damage.

He believes it is not structural, only cosmetic.

“If this is concrete frame, I don’t think it’s going to affect the structure of this building, but you do have falling debris,” Brueggemann said. “We had one (earthquake) that was 4.7 Monday morning, so maybe that’s when it occurred. I don’t know.”

John Rogers owns the cigar lounge on the bottom floor of the tower.

He tends to agree with management of the building that the damage was more likely caused by the ice storm.

“It could be slight cosmetic damage due to earthquake but, then again like I said, I never feel this building move," he said. "And, there may be some ice built up back there that maybe expanded.”

The city had blocked off the alleyway by the damage Thursday afternoon, and the workers in the management office said they were working on getting a mason out to repair the brick.

There are a few tenants on the first floor of the building.

The rest of the tower is being renovated into a boutique hotel.

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