City inspectors approved work @ the Hard Rock Hotel site, but GPS shows they weren’t there

quote:

---

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - New Orleans City Hall officials are investigating whether employees signed off on inspections at the construction site of the Hard Rock Hotel without visiting the project.

The construction site collapsed on October 12, 2019, killing three men. The bodies of two of the workers have yet to be recovered from the site. Since the collapse, several agencies have opened investigations into the collapse and the city’s safety and permits office.

FOX 8 News has obtained and analyzed GPS data from the City of New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits that shows several times inspectors logged they signed off on projects at the site, but vehicle data shows they did not visit.

---

quote:

---

On July 18, 2019, records from the Department of Safety and Permits showed out of 21 vehicles in service that day not one came close to the Hard Rock Hotel construction site.

The inspections log from the city shows inspector Julie Tweeter signed off on work at the construction site that day, but GPS records from the department’s vehicle fleet seems to tell a different story. Through the data, FOX 8 was able to determine which vehicle Tweeter likely drove. It stopped at her house for nearly two hours around noon but never came close to the Hard Rock site at 1031 Canal Street.

---

quote:

---

On September 16, Tweeter also claimed to have visited the site. Records show she noted the construction site ‘passed’ inspection and gave the approval to pour slab on the 17th floor. The GPS records show that day Tweeter came close to the site once, parking at 314 North Rampart, two and a half blocks away from the construction site. The GPS data shows the vehicle was stopped for six minutes. It takes approximately four minutes to walk from that address to the construction site, meaning if the information is accurate, it is unlikely she would have been able to walk to the site, inspect the 17th floor and walk back to her car in six minutes.

---

quote:

---

FOX 8 reviewed Safety and Permits GPS data from July 1 until the day of the October collapse and compared that data to the city’s inspection log of the Hard Rock Hotel site. During that time period, city inspectors claimed to visit the Hard Rock site nine times. In our analysis of the data, we found three cases where GPS data shows inspectors parked a city vehicle near the site. There were six instances in the city’s inspection log that do not have corresponding GPS data showing a city vehicle at the Hard Rock site.

---

quote:

---

On October 1, less that two weeks before the deadly collapse, Inspector Julie Tweeter noted the hotel site passed a slab inspection, but in the GPS data provided by the city, it does not show a safety and permits vehicle near the site that day.

---