PICTURED: Three men missing from collapsed six-story building in Iowa whose deaths were feared

Three men missing since a six-story building collapsed in Iowa on Sunday are feared dead, and city officials have deployed cadaver dogs in a last-ditch effort to save them before the block is demolished.

Photos have been released of Ryan Hitchcock, Branden Colvin and Daniel Prien, who lived in the destroyed block at 324 Main Street Davenport, a town on the eastern border of the state.

One side of the building collapsed on Memorial Day Sunday, just before 5 p.m., and officials said the men had “a good chance they were home at the time of the collapse.”

The three tenants are included in the National Database of Missing Persons.

City officials, who sent rescue teams on Monday, have warned that the building is at risk of further collapse and remains highly unstable.

Iowa Task Force 1, a Cedar Rapids-based urban search and rescue team trained and equipped by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also arrived on the scene Thursday.

The crew was equipped with “live and dead canines,” according to the Davenport government website, dogs trained to sniff out people’s scent.

This comes after officials erroneously said on Monday there was no indication anyone was missing and demolition was scheduled for the following day.

But on Monday night, hours before the bulldozers were due to roll in, rescuers pulled a woman alive from a fourth-floor window.

This sparked protests from Davenport locals calling for the demolition to be postponed.

The woman was the ninth and final person to be pulled from the rubble, and another 12 survivors who could walk on their own were also escorted out safely.

Adding to the challenge for rescuers is a brick-and-steel colossus at the base of the building, which props up the structure but could also contain the bodies of the dead, Mayor Mike Matson warned.

Matson compared the search through this rubble to an archaeological excavation, which had to be carried out carefully and sensitively.

According to AP, documents released Wednesday night showed how city officials and the building’s owner, Davenport Hotel LLC, knew before the collapse that parts of the building were unstable.

On Thursday, city officials said they had not issued an evacuation order for the building because they were relying on the engineer’s assurances that the building remained safe.

Matson said he “regrets” the handling of the situation and promised to launch an investigation into what went wrong.

“Do I regret this tragedy and people who may lose their lives? Damn yes,” he said.

‘Do I have to think about this every moment? Hell yes.

‘I regret many things. Trust me, we’ll look into that.’

Davenport Hotel LLC head Andrew Wold released a statement Tuesday saying “our thoughts and prayers are with our tenants,” and he has been fined $300 for failing to maintain the structure.

He will also have to pay for the demolition.

Neither Wold nor his company nor his attorney have since responded to attempts to reach him.

County records show Davenport Hotel LLC acquired the building in a 2021 deal worth $4.2 million.

Tenants had complained for years about problems they said were ignored by the property managers, including months of loss of heat and hot water, mold and water leaking from ceilings and toilets.

Davenport officials ordered repairs after finding seven fire code violations on Feb. 6, but three weeks later were told by the building’s maintenance team that “none of the work had been completed,” records show.

Rich Oswald, Davenport’s director of development and community services, confirmed on Thursday that Trishna Pradhan, the city’s chief construction official, resigned in the wake of the collapse.

Fire Chief Mike Carlsten said emergency response could take “weeks” due to the hazardous conditions surrounding the building.

Pradhan had visited the building on May 25 and falsely reported it as having “passed” an inspection in notes in the city’s online permit system, Oswald said.

She tried to change the inspection result to the correct “incomplete” status on Tuesday, but a technical glitch listed the result as “failed” instead, he said.

The city later clarified that Pradhan resigned voluntarily and not in lieu of termination. She has not responded to requests for comment.

Assistant city attorney Brian Heyer said he doesn’t know if the city had considered previous civil enforcement actions to protect residents.

“We are doing our best to balance construction conditions and the safety of our responders,” he said.

The rescue mission did not begin until at least 24 hours after the collapse, as the structure was still moving and thus unsafe for excavators, officials said.

Rick Halleran, chief of the task force’s Cedar Rapids division, said of the delay, “We do what the building tells us to.”

Halleran said the search for survivors, which involved sniffer dogs and cameras, concluded Thursday evening.