Structural collapse lawyers note that a 100-year-old Manhattan warehouse building collapsed this week in a fatal accident that left one experienced construction worker dead and two others fighting for their lives. Investigations following the accident have indicated that the causes were weaknesses in the connection of critical structural members and in old hardware connecting pieces of the structure.
Customarily, two separate horizontal support beams will be joined together at a vertical support column. This type of connection helps transfer some of the stress load off of the horizontal structural members and down the column into the ground.
In the case of this old warehouse, the horizontal beam at the center of the collapse extended past the vertical beam and was spliced to the other horizontal support member by means of bolts. Our structural collapse lawyers point out that the inability of this unusual connection to adequately transfer stress loads led to shearing and wearing of the bolts over time. So when workers demolishing the structure in the painstaking Manhattan floor-by-floor manner cut the beam, the lack of solid hardware connections and a vertical column connection to support the remaining structural members led to a complete collapse of the surrounding building.
The demolition workers did not know of the unique structural weaknesses prior to the collapse. The unusual splice connection of the beams and the sheared bolts were encased within two feet of concrete. And construction drawings of these elements of the century-old building were unavailable after all this time.
The unusual and potentially weak splice connection of the horizontal beams was likely not a part of any original design, but an element added for whatever reason by the contractors when the warehouse actually got built. Our structural collapse lawyers wonder if perhaps a supplier delivered beams of the wrong lengths and the splice was an attempt to finish the building quickly and less expensively rather than wait for the delivery of beams of the proper length. And, of course, drawings would not indicate sheared bolts. The shearing results from excessive stress over time.
In any case, structural connections weakened by time and sometimes caused by poor building practices can always present a danger in older buildings. Weakened connections often present dangers in newer buildings as well. It doesn’t take long for bolt hardware to shear where connections have been poorly designed, spaced, or installed. And shearing occurs even faster where builders have used nails when bolts were actually required.
Each year in the U.S. sees numerous reports of deck and balcony collapses caused by poor structural connections. Indeed, cheap and poorly thought out connections are the number one causes of failure in new decks and balconies. Learn what the structural collapse lawyers at Denena & Points could do to help you if you’ve been injured in a structural collapse caused by weakened connections.