Building collapse at Morton Salt on North Side

It started Tuesday afternoon with a loud crash.

Next thing Maurice Venton knew, a wall of the iconic Morton Salt warehouse — company motto: “When It Rains It Pours” — gave way to an avalanche of white crystal and brick.

When it was over, a cluster of cars parked outside the McGrath Acura dealership, Morton’s nearest neighbor, lay buried beneath a mountain of salt. And a massive hole stood where the center of the warehouse’s south-facing wall once stood.

Venton and a co-worker were dumbfounded.

“We were just conversating,” said Venton, a porter for the Near North Side dealership at Elston and Potomac. “Everything just pretty much imploded.”

Spilling salt crunched body paneling and even shoved a few cars out of their parking spaces. “It was a lot of force,” Venton said, likening the sight to a natural disaster seen on TV.

Some of the damaged vehicles belong to McGrath Acura, but some were customer cars parked outside the dealership’s service department, Venton said.

“It was just amazing to see something happen like that. It was so fast,” he said.

Venton was a safe distance away and unscathed by the spill, though a sense of “total dismay” momentarily overcame him. The Chicago Fire Department said no one was injured when the wall collapsed at 2:10 p.m.

Representatives for the salt company did not respond to a voicemail left Tuesday afternoon at the warehouse.

Chicago Department of Buildings spokeswoman Mimi Simon said a preliminary investigation found that salt kept inside was piled too high, causing the wall to collapse.

Motorists and pedestrians passing by gawked at the salt drift. Some snapped pictures.

A crew of engineers showed up about 5 p.m. to assess the structural integrity of the building. City workers said no one would be allowed close to the building until the engineers gave the OK to begin removing the salt.

Tuesday’s collapse followed another structural flaw in the building. The company has an outstanding violation for failing to repair and maintain a portion of the roof, Simon said.

While Venton said the accident was no laughing matter, he did offer a droll quip that any car owner who’s made it through a Chicago winter could relate to.

“I hope they got rust coating,” Venton said. “I’ll tell you that.”