A retaining wall at Chattanooga’s Publix grocery store collapsed following heavy rains across the South. The cracked wall, which officials previously said was a cosmetic problem, originally split and was shored up in December 2015 after record rainfall at that time.
Publix employees in December used upended shopping carts to hold up a plastic fence and cordon off the area, but customers were told they had little to fear because a steel barrier was hidden in the wall.
Piece of steel were lying in piles of rubble in the parking lot on Thursday.
Brenda Reid, a Publix spokesperson, said in December that a team of engineers and others were working on a fix.
“We want to make sure we’re doing it right and not just put a Band-Aid on it,” she said at the time.