Hard Rock Hotel construction site collapse in New Orleans

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Apparently there's some debate going on regarding whether they should just bring down the cranes or implode the whole building. At this point the building is probably a total loss, and with high winds predicted, imploding the whole building is probably the safer option. But that would destroy evidence vital to the investigation.
Edit: Sounds like they've decided to only demo the cranes for now. Doing it tomorrow (Saturday).

 
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Yeah I would assume that leaving one of the cranes upright, loose and leaning inside the structure is not what was intended??? I wonder what the other crane hit on it's way down. 

Damn.

 
Yeah I would assume that leaving one of the cranes upright, loose and leaning inside the structure is not what was intended??? I wonder what the other crane hit on it's way down. 

Damn.
From what I understand, the one that fell to the ground left a pretty good hole in the street and damaged an underground sewer line, but it didn't damage the nearby electrical and gas lines which was the bigger concern. (They shut off all the utilities in the area before the demo.)

The official message from the city officials is (paraphrasing)... "Everything went perfectly. This is exactly how it was planned. Now we can recover the deceased and continue with the cleanup."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 
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The official message from the city officials is (paraphrasing)... "Everything went perfectly. This is exactly how it was planned. Now we can recover the deceased and continue with the cleanup."
This-is-fine.jpg


 
New information is finally starting to come out... and it's not good.

https://www.fox8live.com/2020/02/20/zurik-third-city-inspector-likely-did-not-visit-hard-rock-site-when-he-signed-off-work/

Some excerpts...

FOX 8 has been poring over GPS records from the vehicle fleet for the City of New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits following the Oct. 12 collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site that killed three men.

...

FOX 8 has uncovered three different inspectors who claimed to have visited the construction site but their vehicle was not close to the site.

...

City inspection logs showed Treadaway gave contractors at the Hard Rock site the approval to pour slab on the 14th floor. Instead, GPS data from the city vehicle showed on that July day, Treadaway made a morning stop in Treme, then went to the Westbank, stopping at the University of Holy Cross, his home in Gretna and an Ochsner Clinic -- but not near the Hard Rock Hotel site.

Treadaway submitted his intent to retire from his position hours before FOX 8 aired a report on his vehicle’s GPS data.

...

In December, FOX 8′s Lee Zurik interviewed a former construction worker at the Hard Rock Hotel site who described sagging floors and poles meant to support drying slab that were bent.

“I remember one weekend we went up in there and we’re working and we’re knocking the pole shores down and we could tell something was wrong," he said. "Everytime we would knock one down you’d hear another one go -- Boom! Boom! -- And so we stopped and we got a supervisor to go up there. The supervisor came up and when he came up he told us it was a – he told us to stop.

"He told us to stop because the floor had dropped like a half an inch or so.”

...

The construction worker said he remembered this happened around two months before the deadly collapse, around the same period of time FOX 8 has uncovered several city inspectors may not have visited the site.

 
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I read an article this morning that they are planning on demoing the buildings with the other bodies still inside. 
Yeah, 3 people were killed. They were only able to recover 1 body, so there are still 2 inside. The building is dangerously unstable and access is limited.

The city put out a bid request for demolition, and one of the requirements was recovering the bodies before demolition. All the companies either said it wasn't possible or refused to submit a bid. So the city had to revise the requirement to recovering the remains after demolition (by implosion).

It sucks, and I feel terrible for those families. But at the same time, it's not worth getting anyone else killed to recover the bodies, so I get it.

 
But in the end, does this really do anything aside from giving the families someone else to add to their lawsuit? It should still be up to the contractor to make sure the work is being done correctly?

 
We had our little collapse here in Cincy a couple months ago.  Four hurt, one dead (who they were able to get out) but they were back to work a week later.  Work resumed on other parts of the building and they were bringing in a structural firm to evaluate the area where the collapse happened.

I've gotta figure that no matter what the Engineer says, it's going to be hard to find tenants because it's always going to be "that building that collapsed".

 
Well, there's a big debate about who is going to pay for everything. There are SO many people who have damages:

  • the families of the 3 people killed,
  • the 2 dozen people who were injured, 
  • the property owner / developer,
  • the contractor / builder,
  • the city,
  • the business in the area that are either shut down or making less money due to less foot traffic,
  • the residents in the area who had to be temporarily relocated.
It's very important to figure out who is at fault because they have to pay all of those damages. 

 
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