The deck probably had way more people on it than it was designed for.
Appeared to me, in the footage on Fox this morning, that the ledger boards showed a lot of nails, but I didn’t see where any lag bolts tore loose.
Very substandard construction, if this is true.
It’s time to ban high capacity decks.
I see these stories from time to time. Balcony + Party = Collapse. Stay the hell away from any such combo.
Math and engineering is hard and expensive.
And what is the worst that can happen anyways?
One would have to be CRAZY to stand on a suspended in New Jersey, considering the way building inspectors are paid off.
It was also the weekend of the NJ State Firefighters convention that year.
It was the strangest time and place to take a holiday.
Pretty much everyone walking around Cape May was subdued and solemn. We saw a lot of firefighters and their families as Wildwood is just a short drive from Cape May and likely many staying in or visiting the town for the convention.
I saw a lot of people crying and also saw a lot of people hugging one another. We drove up to Wildwood and saw all the firetrucks and hotel balconies draped in American flags and black bunting. We walked down to the beach to see formations fighter jets flying up and down the coast on patrol. And if you looked north from Cape May, up the coast, you could see faintly, but noticeably the plume of smoke still rising from Ground Zero. Anywhere there was a TV, people gathered to watch the latest news reports. We heard about a candlelight vigil in Cape May and went. I was crying, nearly everyone was and people, complete strangers would just walk up to you and give you a hug. Many of the stores were giving out the candles for free and many had small American hand held flags, some were selling them but most were giving them away until they ran out.
There was also a vigil and prayer service taking place the next night in Wildwood but we decided not to go as we were already so emotionally drained.
We took the Cape May Ferry back to Maryland that Sunday on our way to Salisbury MD to visit my SIL, saw the bomb sniffing dogs and National Guardsmen inspecting all cars before being allowed onto the ferry. On our drive through the Maryland Eastern Shore, every overpass had American flags on them and we couldn’t count the number of American Flags on cars and trucks, on houses and businesses as we drove by. At my SIL’s house we watched the news coverage. We did manage a round of golf with my SIL and her husband, but truthfully no one’s heart was really into it.
I remember on the drive home saying to my husband of our trip and to quote Dicken’s – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”.
Anyway, this event brought back one of my many memories of 9/11. My heart goes out to those injured and their families.
We looked at a lot of condo developments and 9 times out of 10, the decks were the reason we kept moving on. Even in so-called upscale developments, the decks seem to be an afterthought, with all the aesthetic focus placed on the front of the buildings.
In many cases, these decks were just wood planks hanging off the side of the building, so shoddy that I wouldn't feel comfortable sitting on even by myself. Now I'm a big deck person, when the weather is nice, I prefer to spend almost all my time on the deck with my reading, my laptop and taking in the fresh air. So the quality of the deck was always a big priority for me.
Finally I found a development with solid concrete podium construction that met all my other requirements. But it was a long search.
"Just going to see O'Reilly dear!"
My guess is it was a combination of lousy construction and a deck loaded with too many people, good construction or not.
I have a healthy conscious reticence all my life about joining crowds.
The secret hid
Under Cheops pyramid
Is that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions.