Posted on 10/12/2019 8:02:07 AM PDT by Meatspace
Just for the heck of it, let me add something to my post #55. As I noted there, the union guys I knew in the building trades were all skilled craftsmen. Most of them took real pride in their work.
I also spent some time working in a union steel mill. That was back in the late 1970’s. I did not find that same thing there. It wasn’t ‘Get the job done right.’ For many guys it was ‘Do just enough to make the foreman happy.’
That’s why I’ll defend union tradesmen all day long. But the union guys in the mill, not so much.
Now I will agree that cranes are often involved in a collapse like this but the first thing I noticed is the apparent lack of re-shores on the two floors immediately below the last floor placed. Not always required but quite common on this type of two way deck.
Chinese steel?
LOL Yeah Trumps fault
Maybe building it on hard rock would have been a good idea. Cheap China concrete?
Since I am a welder,..I will blame the welders.
New Orleans corruption. Inspectors got paid off, engineering firm overseeing construction got paid off. Same ol’ same ol’.
Houston, we have a problem...
Hard to tell but it looks like a concrete bell attached to the crane so it may have occurred during a concrete slab pour.
Can you say “progressive collapse”?
Top story ‘supports’ give way, allowing that floor to impact the one below it, and continuing ...
For once, we agree: Progressive collapse.
In fact, that structure --- just like the WTC towers -- was designed to collapse progressively.
I'm working up a structural analysis based on the first photo. That thing was a disaster waiting to happen...
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BTW, has anyone said if it was built atop an existing structure -- like a concrete parking garage? (I'm busy a offline -- drawing and annotating...)
TXnMA
I read your post aloud to my husband. At “sudden gravitational disassembly,” he chuckled heartily.
First thing I noticed, too,
The video starts too late -- and ends too soon -- but, the top floors' right corners are just beginning to droop at the beginning -- and there is already a large, developed cloud of "collapse dust" at the lower right...
I hope there's more of that video -- especially at the beginning...
TXnMA
Those floors weren’t concrete: no fracture dust — even on the completed floors — when they flexed & fractured...
Time to break out that old Bob Dylan classic....
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rock’s a-gonna fall!
Was the hotel built atop an existing concrete parking garage?
TXnMA
Yep.
On the video, you can see a construction worker running as the scaffolding collapses halfway up.
Don’t know.
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