Bill and I took a short trip to Florida to visit my aunt. We stayed at a Best Western in North Bay Village. This Best Western, while not stylish, is an easy drive to my aunt’s house, has nice view of Biscayne Bay, and had a restaurant, Shuckers, that we liked. The Shuckers Bar and Grill was my idea of a tropical bar, open on three sides with a large 30 foot by 120 foot deck extending over the bay. Ambience was quite nice; the food was ok.
We had supper at Shuckers. I took these first two images with my cell phone - just goofing around.
Bill and I ate on the large open-air deck attached to the Shuckers restaurant.
The yellow roof belongs to the Shuckers restaurant. The deck attached to the restaurant
extended 30 feet out into Biscayne Bay.
After dinner we retired to our room. Perhaps an hour later we heard sirens, many of them. I looked outside and saw a police helicopter and police boats in the bay. So Bill checked. He found that the deck where we had been eating had collapsed, dumping the restaurant patrons into the bay. Several people were seriously injured; two dozen were taken to the hospital. Fortunately, no one died. You may have seen the reports of this incident on the national news.
The next morning, I got out my big camera and took the following images.
Notice how the deck behind the restaurant has collapsed into the bay.
A different view of the collapsed deck. Management closed the yellow storm curtains
between the restaurant and the deck.
A deck umbrella and other debris in the water.
A forest of transmission attennas sprung up in the west parking lot.
Broadcasting the collapse for the morning news.