A Rembrandt Foods employee is dead after a barn collapsed in Rembrandt, Iowa, an official with Buena Vista Co Emergency Management Agency (EMA) confirmed.
According to local news station KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa, "The incident occurred on Friday, February 14, at approximately 6:30 a.m. A 911 call was received by the Buena Vista County Communications Center for a response at Rembrandt Foods."
Rescue operations began immediately after confirmation was made that an employee was still inside the building.
After emergency crews worked in the barn for nearly 12 hours, in what an EMA official called brutal weather conditions, officials say they had to stop the search due to significant concerns for responder safety.
Winter weather conditions are not believed to have been a factor in the structures collapsing, the EMA official said.
The next day, the search resumed at 7 a.m. and a victim's body was recovered at 2 p.m. When the victim's body was found, the Buena Vista Sheriffs' Office and the medical examiner were immediately called to the scene. The scene of the accident was released to Rembrandt at 4:16 pm.
The KTIV report explained that the building's demise resulted in equipment collapsing inside the structure.
"Further assistance in the search for the missing employee was requested from Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The Sioux City component of Iowa Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue was activated and deployed to the scene," the KTIV report said.
An EMA official confirmed there were birds in the building, too, but could not comment on the number of birds lost.
According to the WATTAgNet's Top Poultry Companies database, Rembrandt Enterprises, doing business as Rembrandt Foods, is a vertically integrated egg products company that manages the entire process from grain to finished product. It is one of the largest egg ingredient producers in the U.S. and works with international customers as well to reach a global market. As of December 31, 2019, the company's layer flock included 11.9 million hens. It is the seventh largest egg company in the U.S., ranked by the number of layers.
