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This has been such a tragic story to follow. Especially as they pull children out of there. I'm not a civil engineer, but have been on those subreddits and blo

by breck 5y ago

This has been such a tragic story to follow. Especially as they pull children out of there. I'm not a civil engineer, but have been on those subreddits and blogs reading about the investigation. Curious if anyone knows: is there an equivalent of a "blackbox" data recorder for tall buildings like this? If not, should there be? Would there have been signals given off from the columns that may have forewarned of disaster? What kind of vitals would be good to collect? It seems visual inspection is a bit too subjective.

h2odragon 5y ago
The columns gave off signals; there's pictures from the reports of the concrete cracking and rusting rebar. There wasn't any need for fancier sensors and data recording technology than was used.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Reminds me of that West Wing episode and the parable of the man who lived by the river. "I sent you rust, cracks, and an engineers report, and your building still fell down."
- breck 5y ago
  > There wasn't any need for fancier sensors and data recording technology than was used. Obviously there was. A common refrain in all the civil engineering discussions I'm reading is that this inspection report was in bottom 10%, perhaps bottom 1%, but not 0.00001% off the charts atypical. It's quite apparent that we need more dimensions of data—if for nothing else than to make it crystal clear when a situation is approaching disaster. We also still do not know what actually happened (and may never know), so for post-mortems this sort of thing seems important. What simple steps can be done to reduce the probability of this happening again by 1,000x+?
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    What if it wasn't atypical because there's lots of buildings showing damage like this? Coastal Florida, especially; is harsh environment for building and they've had 40+ years of "slap it together as fast and cheap as possible" construction there. It don't matter how much data you have about the tidal wave bearing down on you; you has to move out of its way regardless.
    - breck 5y ago
      > What if it wasn't atypical because there's lots of buildings showing damage like this? Yes, this is scary. Lots of respect for the first responders and all the engineers working non-stop right now to figure this out.
- secabeen 5y ago
  That's true, but every structural engineer interviewed about those reports says something like "yes, that should be fixed, but it shouldn't have brought the building down." The smoking gun has yet to emerge.

by breck 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago

The columns gave off signals; there's pictures from the reports of the concrete cracking and rusting rebar. There wasn't any need for fancier sensors and data recording technology than was used.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Reminds me of that West Wing episode and the parable of the man who lived by the river. "I sent you rust, cracks, and an engineers report, and your building still fell down."
breck 5y ago
> There wasn't any need for fancier sensors and data recording technology than was used. Obviously there was. A common refrain in all the civil engineering discussions I'm reading is that this inspection report was in bottom 10%, perhaps bottom 1%, but not 0.00001% off the charts atypical. It's quite apparent that we need more dimensions of data—if for nothing else than to make it crystal clear when a situation is approaching disaster. We also still do not know what actually happened (and may never know), so for post-mortems this sort of thing seems important. What simple steps can be done to reduce the probability of this happening again by 1,000x+?
- h2odragon 5y ago
  What if it wasn't atypical because there's lots of buildings showing damage like this? Coastal Florida, especially; is harsh environment for building and they've had 40+ years of "slap it together as fast and cheap as possible" construction there. It don't matter how much data you have about the tidal wave bearing down on you; you has to move out of its way regardless.
  - breck 5y ago
    > What if it wasn't atypical because there's lots of buildings showing damage like this? Yes, this is scary. Lots of respect for the first responders and all the engineers working non-stop right now to figure this out.
secabeen 5y ago
That's true, but every structural engineer interviewed about those reports says something like "yes, that should be fixed, but it shouldn't have brought the building down." The smoking gun has yet to emerge.