Structural collapse lawyers note that the fatal collapse of an outdoor beer garden at a sports bar in downtown St. Louis is raising some questions in the city regarding the safety of these outdoor structures and the standards that regulate them. The tent collapse is blamed on a strong gust of storm wind that ripped through the tent and tore it from its moorings.
The tent collapse in St. Louis killed 1 man, sent 17 people to the hospital, left 4 people in critical condition, and injured around 100 of the sports bar patrons. News accounts of the accident mention that the tent met the city’s safety standards and that the tent had passed inspection just a couple of weeks previously.
Our structural collapse lawyers point out that the city requires that such outdoor tents be able to withstand wind gusts up to 90 mph. The gust that tore down the tent reportedly measured above 70 mph. Investigators are looking into whether the tent had been modified since its initial inspection and whether safety procedures were followed.
Wind gusts from storms have been blamed for a series of deadly collapses of temporary outdoor structures in recent years. Just days ago, our structural collapse lawyers wrote about the collapse of an outdoor stage at Mt. Herzl, Israel that claimed the life of an IDF officer. And last summer, the disastrous Indiana outdoor concert stage collapse claimed several lives and injured dozens more. Particularly in the Indiana accident, controversy centers on the failure to evacuate the premises during storm warnings.
Strong storms and high storm wind gusts are not going to go away any time soon. And people are probably not going to become any more likely to take heed of inclement weather than they are now. Too often, sensationalist storm warnings and frantic calls to take shelter or evacuate become ridiculous when storms change course or peter out before reaching its expected destination. And so people develop inclinations to ignore such storm warnings.
There seem to our structural collapse lawyers to be two primary approaches to the problem of deadly collapses of temporary outdoor structures from high winds:
Vastly increase safety standards and regulations. Note that this approach would likely render the use of temporary outdoor structures too costly and impractical. Such safety standards might, in effect, render these structures only marginally distinguishable from permanent, indoor structures.
Make evacuation of outdoor events and temporary outdoor structures mandatory in the event of any severe storm warning or severely inclement weather. This approach has the possibility of causing injuries from the forced evacuations and chaos that could result from repeated evacuations of large gatherings. It might also render all large, outdoor gatherings impractical throughout much of the nation for much of the year.
But somewhere between no reaction to the problem of wind-related outdoor structural collapses and overreaction there might be a sensible solution based on a modification of existing safety standards and severe weather policies and procedures. Any practical solution will also have to balance the costs of potential injury liability against the costs of disrupting large gatherings and highly anticipated outdoor events.
In the Indiana stage collapse disaster, it has been suggested that better training of event personnel regarding safety procedures, a clearer chain of authority, and better safety planning could have helped avoid the results of the stage collapse.
Regarding the Mt. Herzl incident, authorities seem to suggest that better oversight of the negligent personnel responsible for constructing the stage might have prevented fatal injuries.
It will be interesting to hear the conclusions of the St. Louis authorities investigating the tent collapse, especially regarding whether they find any deviations from the safety standards that the tent reportedly met.
To learn about the detailed of the St. Louis collapse, read our structural collapse lawyers’ description of the incident in the linked article.