Wall Collapse in Harrisburg, PA

[TTMK]

Here are some photos of a wall collapse that occurred yesterday in Harrisburg, PA. No injuries or deaths.

Link

 

[bridgebuster]

It seems there's not much info to go right now.

 

[Spartan5]

There is a before and after picture here:

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/05/harrisburg_wall_collapse_mulbe.html

And another picture from 1909 that shows it was originally a standalone wall (note the windows which are filled in in the picture above to orient yourself):

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/05/mulberry_street_bridge_in_harr.html

This map circa 1955 shows that the wall (CONC WALL left side) was incorporated into a building which was eventually removed and replaced with fill behind the wall and parking above:

 

[IRstuff]

The Google Maps street view image shows a noticeable crack in the wall from images taken in 2011. Seems like a possible accident waiting to happen.

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[JohnRBaker]

So the wall was originally designed and built to only support vertical loading, correct? If they never provided any sort of anchoring/reinforcement when they back-filled it so as to provide a parking area, this could be the real fault. Now there does appear to be some shallow 'buttresses' on the outer face of the wall that can't be seen from the 1909 photo due to it looking toward the backside of the wall, so we don't know if those were added when the back-filling was done, but even so, they don't look like they would all that much lateral support for such a tall wall.

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[cranky108]

??? The map looks like this was built to be the side of a building, and not a wall at all. Or is this my mistake in understanding?

Where was the city inspection?

 

[IRstuff]

Compare the 1955 map from Spartan5's second link with this one from 1901

The wall was apparently free standing in 1909, but that might have been for an older building that shows up in the 1901 map, and then incorporated into the building as shown in the 1955 map. After that, it was apparently left as a retaining wall when the building itself was torn down, and the sublevels filled in. The railings look similar to what's on the bridge itself in 1909, so it might have been part of the bridge design

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