Update: Brighton Rite-Aid Roof Collapse

Contrary to the Allston-Brighton TAB's blog post, Market Street is not fully open to traffic. As I noted this morning, only northbound traffic is currently allowed on Market Street; southbound traffic is still, as of 4 pm, being detoured east-west on Arlington Street.

There is an electronic sign at Market Street and Faneuil Street announcing a detour via Faneuil Street and Parsons Street. Virtually no cars seem to be following that detour, causing a big slowdown on southbound Market Street approaching St. Columbkille's church. Follow the signs!

Southbound MBTA #86 buses are turning left (east) at Arlington Street, and then (presumably) right onto Cambridge Street followed by left onto Chestnut Hill Avenue. I saw one #86 bus southbound across from the Veronica Smith Senior Center, so they appear to be turning left from Washington Street onto Chestnut Hill Avenue.

Needless to say, traffic within 4-6 blocks of Brighton Center is awful in virtually every direction. Take alternate routes.


Future of the Building

Steve MacDonald, Public Information Officer for the Boston Fire Department, confirmed that no people in nearby buildings have been evacuated as a result of the partial building collapse of the Rite-Aid Pharmacy.

I saw construction workers off-loading large concrete blocks from a flatbed truck at the site. MacDonald said that these blocks will be used as part of shoring up the exterior walls of the building. That work is going on tonight, and may continue throughout the day tomorrow (Tuesday).

Once the exterior walls are supported, MacDonal said that full vehicular traffic can then resume on Market Street.

Traffic was being kept some distance away from the building because of the nature of the buckling of the walls and roof. If they north or south walls caved inwards, according to MacDonald, then the eastern wall facing Market Street could cave outwards -- spraying glass and bricks onto the sidewalk and part of the street itself.

Continued assessment of the structural integrity of the building will be made by inspectors from Boston's Inspectional Services Department and the property owner. Boston Police will continue to in charge of the traffic management around the area.


Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

I saw WHDH-TV (channel 7) and WCVB-TV (channel 5) trucks near to the Rite-Aid store at 4 pm, so they are probably planning on live-on-the-scene reports tonight.

No WBZ-TV truck was anywhere I could see. They are probably hanging out over at 181 Brighton Avenue in Allston trying to figure out how the store got rebuilt within 24 hours. As of this morning when they updated their online story, WBZ still had the wrong address for the store on their website. Cached version on google as of 5:24 pm (meaning that around 8 hours earlier, or 9:24 am, WBZ still had 181 Brighton Avenue listed on their website):



WBZ has now updated today's story with the correct address. Hopefully they told their team in the field.