How long does it take the inept New Orleans officials to retrieve a dead body from a collapsed building?
It turns out the answer to that question is about 10 months.
The third and final body was recovered from the Hard Rock Hotel construction site Monday, nearly 10 months after the upper floors of the building collapsed onto and rained debris onto Canal and Rampart streets below.
The remains of Jose Ponce Arreola, a 63-year-old construction worker who was killed during the collapse, were removed from the 8th floor of the site just before 4 p.m., New Orleans city officials said.
"We are grateful to finally have some measure of closure for both families who had to experience an intolerable delay," Mayor LaToya Cantrell said in a statement.
Attorney Miguel Elias, who is helping represent Ponce's family in an unresolved wrongful death lawsuit against those responsible for the Hard Rock building project, said crew members knew they had Ponce after finding his wallet in his pocket. But after being taken to the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office, Ponce's remains will go to a forensic unit at LSU to run DNA tests and confirm his identity definitively.
Ruins of the 58 metre Hard Rock Hotel which collapsed during construction and remained untouched for months on 11th March 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. On October 12, 2019, the under-construction building partially collapsed, killing three workers and injuring dozens of others. As of 2020, the building site remains in its partially collapsed state, including with the bodies of two deceased workers. Government officials are debating the project's future and potential culpability of various people and organizations involved. (photo by Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)