City sues porch owner

Associated Press ^ | 7-2-03 | MAURA KELLY

[JustPiper]

Noticed how the tune is changing, even just from yesterday.

[JustPiper]

Update Ping!

[MizSterious]

Well, that's a relief that someone's being sued. I mean, it would be a terrible thing to think that the party-host might have been at fault for letting almost 50 people crowd onto one tiny little porch. Or any of the 50 people who were dumb enough to squeeze onto that porch.

I'm sorry people were hurt in this, but honestly, you can't tell me they built that porch for use by 50+ people to use all at once. I doubt if our own back porch would withstand that.

[Publius6961]

Noticed how the tune is changing, even just from yesterday.

????
Changed from what to what?

Help us out here.

[Dr Warmoose]

I also noticed that the city nudged itself to the front of the payolla line for what is going to prove to be an extremely expensive porch.

[JustPiper]

Update Ping!

[JustPiper]

Please read the details on this thred to see who was where and how many

Here

[sit-rep]

That would be my question as well...

[JustPiper]

The day it happened the building was structureally sound. Next day it was only overcrowding. Pappas built it illegally and now the building commisioner is saying there were many flaws. The press conference here today covered more than this article, sorry.

[JustPiper]

And will give the bid to the first Daleyite!

[JustPiper]

structureally soun

I kinda like this typo ;)

[RightWhale]

Permits? We don't need no steenkin' permits.

[MizSterious]

Yes, I was wrong. It appears there were 60 people on the porch, not 50. Yes, there were permit problems, but I find the most serious problem was the common sense problem. It's just not smart to put 60 people on a porch. Good grief, doesn't anyone think any more?

[JustPiper]

Exerpts from the Times:
City Hall will hire an expert to reconstruct the Lincoln Park porch that collapsed Sunday to determine whether city inspectors did a thorough job when they approved the structure in November, officials said Tuesday.

Pappas, owner of 42 Chicago buildings, could face a penalty of $500 a day. He remains on vacation in rural Canada, apparently unaware of Sunday's tragedy.

Police said Tuesday they have accounted for 114 people who were on the three levels of the porch structure when it pancaked to the ground.

Whether the Wrightwood porch was safely built--and whether the city's annual inspection of the building last fall was complete enough--will be left to an outside expert hired to rebuild the porch piece-by-piece.

The city's code requires a porch to bear 100 pounds per square foot of 'live load,' meaning people, and another 25 pounds of 'dead load,' meaning the building materials.

Officials estimated the third-floor deck at the Wrightwood building was 13 by 20 feet. If constructed according to the code, it should have been able to hold at least 32,500 pounds--or 162 people weighing 200 pounds--and probably double that, experts told the Sun-Times.

[bert]

The unanswered question is"who constructed the porch?"

Did the owner hire a contractor who skipped the building permit phase and failed to follow code? If so, what were the contractual arrangements?

[JustPiper]

When your that young you feel indestructable, should be a Superman complex. Again all the young folx were not on one level, again it was actually 3 porches that collapsed, as it went from 5-6 to 3 so they doubled in size.

[JustPiper]

It seems he did hire out a sub-contractor.

[MizSterious]

So, just because someone is "young" they hsve no responsibility for making common sense decisions? It's a wonder any of us survive past 30.

[JustPiper]

City Determines Improper Construction Cause For Porch Tragedy video

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Looks like the city is all over this one. (Too late as usual.)