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Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans collapses... 119

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qte447f,

The people who entered the building were highly paid specialists who knew exactly what was going on. They worked for Controlled Demolitions, the most highly respected (IMHO) implosion and demo company in the USA.

They knew the risks, evaluated them and acted accordingly.

I would have preferred an air strike but I'm not in that business any more. :)

Regards,

Mojojohn
 
MOJOJOHN said:
The people who entered the building were highly paid
Click to expand...

Bingo! I guess this is as it should be and the best that can be hoped for in these situations whether they involve imploding or shoring or whatever.
 
You have to remember that this building site is within a highly populated area that has many points of ingress. It would be very difficult to implode the building without the serious risk of injury to people who wander into the danger zone, not to mention historic buildings in the near vicinity (Saenger Theatre is right across the street). I imagine people would have to be excluded for days before the actual implosion, in case of an early trigger. I guess when shoring you start with the most stable corner, and work out from that point.
 
Will the concrete structure be retained? Seems a shame to demolish that, when the problems were in the steel structure above.
 
Good question hokie66. When the original plan of implosion was discussed, I made the assumption that they would do that from inside the concrete lower levels, as that would have afforded them some level of safety to set the charges. Now that the are going piece by piece, it would seem that the concrete could be salvaged. I would expect that politics will play some role in that decision.

In general with this thing, it seems like the planning for demo and the investigations have been kept relatively secret. Every once in a while, I check the news outlets in that area to see if there are updates, but generally speaking there has not been much reported on.

In my area, the public would demand answers and the politicians would excerpt pressure to extract them.
 
Has there been anything in the news about why the collapse occurred?

I know we here all have a sense that the structural design was "iffy" at best...but it is always good for other engineers to learn from mistakes.

 
JAE said:
Has there been anything in the news about why the collapse occurred?
Click to expand...


In a press conference last Thursday, Fire Chief McConnell hinted that the experts have indicated to the city that they have an idea why it collapsed, but McConnell wouldn't say what that is.

hokie66 said:
Will the concrete structure be retained? Seems a shame to demolish that, when the problems were in the steel structure above.
Click to expand...

I agree, but last week, the city said that the goal is to have the building demolished to a "grass lot" by December 2020. There is a panel for "peer review" of the demolition, so maybe they will talk some sense into McConnell and the mayor's representatives.

OHIOMatt said:
In general with this thing, it seems like the planning for demo and the investigations have been kept relatively secret. Every once in a while, I check the news outlets in that area to see if there are updates, but generally speaking there has not been much reported on.

In my area, the public would demand answers and the politicians would excerpt pressure to extract them.
Click to expand...

Believe me, we want to know who is advising the mayor on this, but the city has been quite tight-lipped about the engineers who are involved. I'm thinking that is for liability reasons, but it is not very reassuring to us, the profession, and the public.

The media has been digging into the story, as much as possible. This video was linked above. It is a discussion of the collapse by "veteran reporters David Hammer, WWLTV, and John Simmerman, The New Orleans Advocate/NOLA.com Times-Picayune". They quote a "Mike Lincoln" who is an expert in concrete design or construction who says, as we all have said, that we need the FINAL construction drawings before we can draw any conclusions about the cause of failure. OSHA should have the drawings that were in use at the site. Hoping to see some results from that analysis maybe by April (the 6-month mark).
 
One thing I don't quite get is why municipalities allow changes to designs after permit approval without requiring changed drawings to be submitted. Not necessarily approved, but if you're building something the municipality ought to require the as-built (final construction drawings) to be on file. Just require sending in a new set of drawings when changes are made. No need to delay construction for approval.
 
Eufalconimorph - I'd say it depends on where you are. Where I am, even a semi-ordinary house requires approval for substantive changes to a design. GC is required to have a set of drawings on site with the City's approval seal on it, and that's what the inspector uses to check on things. Of course level of effort from City inspectors runs from "yeah, I think I drove within a few miles of that today - pass" to using a caliper to measure rebar spacing, but wherever they fall in the spectrum they are supposed to use the approved drawings. If the design changes, it has to be approved before the inspector will sign off on it.

I've only been following this one a little, so I may be putting my foot in my mouth, but it seems to me the issue is that updated/revised drawings are not available through the City's online portal. That doesn't necessarily mean they weren't submitted and approved.
 
phanENG and Eufalconimorph, certainly any "substantial" change to the plans should be submitted to the permit office. For this project, the scheme for the elevator enclosures changed from truss to portal frame, number and size of 'shear walls', structures on the roof. and I think even the number of floors (!) changed between the 2018 structural permit set and the 2019 architectural set. Makes you wonder what they were using on site. Of course, engineers think that the permit office only adds hassle to a job, not value, but at some point if you completely re-design the building, you should be willing to "re-submit" (though it would likely be a completely new submittal).

Here's the latest -- the developer is blaming the "design professionals", which probably includes the builder/general contractor:
 
So the developer is a LLC set-up specifically for this building. Probably not funded well enough to ride through this unless there is a future plan to make back the lost money.

So, I'd be curious how/why the developer believes demolishing 3 adjacent historic buildings would help make it safer to demolish the building. The developer asked for this but apparently still hasn't laid out the plans detailing how it would help. Considering the site layout in the article posted by NOLAscience that's stinking of taking advantage of the situation for future gain. It's give them a larger square lot for the next development.
 
LionelHutz, the name of the developer is "1031 Canal Development LLC", so it appears as if this is the case. Obviously, I am not an engineer, but this is what I have dealt with on some of my projects in the past. I am sure that this will be discussed in legal forums as well as this plays out.

This has been used and sometimes abused by wealthy real-estate investors for decades to prevent one bad project from costing them their fortune or jeopardizing their business. Other than public backlash, a bankruptcy filing by the LLC appears as if it will have little impact on the owners, outside the money already invested. Hopefully the owners, insurance carriers, design professionals and others responsible for this tragedy take the high road. If not, I would think that the ones left holding the bag would be the citizens of New Orleans and perhaps the State of Louisiana.
 
I failed to fully comment on this before. The developer is asking for adjacent historical buildings to be demolished, which he so happens to own and apparently which are already vacant (did he get rid of the tenants?). However, the developer isn't taking part in creating the demolition plan and the people who are planning the demolition apparently don't yet have a firm plan. That's why it stunk as odd to me.
 
gte447f said:
In the article you linked, it simply says that the developer says they "relied upon design professionals to construct the building". I would not necessarily characterize that statement as "blaming".
Click to expand...

I would. The blame may not be explicit, but it is implicit in the content in which the quote was delivered.

If only they'd relied on "engineering professionals" this whole thing would have been avoided.
 
gte said:
In the article you linked, it simply says that the developer says they "relied upon design professionals to construct the building". I would not necessarily characterize that statement as "blaming".
Click to expand...

It is a statement attributing the fault to those on whom they relied. It is blaming them.
 
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