Car park 'collapses' in US city

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

A section of a car park has collapsed near the centre of Atlanta city in the US state of Georgia.

TV footage showed that part of at least one floor had fallen onto the level below, crushing cars.

Witnesses told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper that four floors of the deck had collapsed, but that the overall structure remained.

It is not known if anyone was hurt. The deck is near the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8125308.stm

[Bicoastal]

1. My worst fear:

...a building collapsing on top of my head.

[YOY]

20. Mine is walking in on Clown Sex.

that and I just don't like people touching my throat.

[babydollhead]

21. I have a rule...no squirrels on my throat

[Ohio Joe]

33. Mine is guacamole

Shit creeps me out.

[maseman]

38. Weird but I'm with you

Green slimey food with chunks is just not appetizing.

Pooping in public bathrooms freaks me out. Oh yeah and those old public urinal troughs at the stadiums were really gross.

[Blue Diadem]

41. I have a friend who was in a building that began to suddenly crack and then

just as everyone escaped, it collapsed. The building was under renovation and something went terribly wrong. They were lucky no one was injured or killed.

She told me she was in her office and she heard someone screaming to get out now and at the same time she was seeing a crack go right up the wall of her office.

[TheCoxwain]

44. Dont worry -- you wont feel a thing ...it will be very quick.

[Nihil]

46. Unfortunately, I thought you were replying to the post on clown sex ...

... and now I have to clean my keyboard ...
:spray:

[otohara]

2. How Is It - The BBC

knows and reports our business before anyone else?

Oh wait...I forgot, our MSM SUCKS....

[RebelOne]

5. The story was on WSBTV in Atlanta before being reported by the BBC. n/t

[jobycom]

8. Unless there were casualties, it's not much of a story outside Atlanta.

Not sure why the BBC is reporting it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. In the US, if it bleeds, it leads - and conversely, without bodies there's not story.

The REAL story here is America's collapsing infrastructure. BBC recognizes that.

[jobycom]

14. The collapsing infrastructure and the decline in building standards are both important.

But one building doesn't show either very well. It's a big country, stuff collapses all the time. They'd have to tie it in with a bigger trend with more evidence and data. Until they do, Billy Mays's death affects more people. Probably helps more people, too, since now it will raise awareness of heart disease.

[TrogL]

24. Name another non-third-world country with lots of infrastructure collapses

We had a sinkhole here last week but they're expected here because of the insane swings in temperature. Regardless, as soon as the thaw hits crews are out patching things up. My whole neighbourhood's a disaster right now because they're replacing all the sidewalks.

I can't think of another major infrastructure collapse in a second-world country (ie. not Mexico) in recent memory.

[excess_3]

47. please don't fly on Airbus .n/t

[damntexdem]

13. Buildings shouldn't fall down. If they do, that should be news.

It shouldn't take deaths to make it news. Of course, here in the Dallas area, it only took the paralyzing of a professional football assistant coach to make it news -- but that's NFL news, so news of America's true religion. ;-)

[jobycom]

19. It's one section of parking garage. Why would that be big news?

Stuff like that happens all the time, somewhere. If it were a trend they could trace to bad standards, concrete, contracting, corruption, or whatever, it would be a bigger story. As it is, it's going to affect a few car owners and anyone who uses the garage for a month.

[conscious evolution]

43. Its not just one parking lot

I have worked on several construction projects in Atlanta that were built by the same contactor.The things I saw on their projects scared the hell out of me.
At the Atlantic Station project they built it is only a matter of time before the parking decks collapse.The place is built with rotten concrete.The precast concrete decks do not have enough tension cables.Many of the tension cables were cut by other trades when drilling through to mount or install equipment.The decks are so weak they added metal banding in an attempt to strengthen them.
The thing that freaked me out was how much the decks flex.Me and a helper were thrown into the air when a forklift drove across the deck and caused it to flex up and down over a foot.if we would have been on ladders or lifts we would have been seriously injured.

I will not go into any building built by hrdin construction anymore due to fear of their shoddy work.

[Posteritatis]

29. In a country as large, developed and complex as the United States

...buildings are gonna fall down, fall over, catch fire, flood, explode or spontaneously develop near-human intelligence on a daily basis. Making every instance of one doing any of those national news would be overdoing it just a bit.

[MADem]

37. I can tell you why--the link is BBC Hong Kong; The Chinese just had a building fall over the other

day.

It's a "See, they're just like us" story. Pleases the local consumers of the BBC HK product.

[lunatica]

48. I disagree. A catastrophic disaster averted is definitely a story worth telling

It speaks to a whole bunch of issues. Who built it? What and why did they build it so substandard that it would just collapse. How many people use it on any given day? What does it say about other buildings and the state of the infrastructure in this country?

This is a big story, just like when people are killed when structures collapse.

[drm604]

22. I saw it a while ago on CNN,

or maybe it was MSNBC. It was one of those two.

[unapatriciated]

30. I thought the same thing....

I live just outside of Atlanta and the first I hear of it is on DU from the bbc.

[Greyhound]

35. Well, it's not like there is a 24 hour Cable News Network based there or anything..

:rofl:

God, we're so stupid. I swear sometimes they just do this kind of thing to see if anybody will ever notice.

[Joanne98]

3. Chinese concrete.

[nc4bo]

7. or Made In China rebar. nt

[panader0]

9. Yeah, we sent them all the steel from the Trade Towers.

[ixion]

10. no, then the entire structure would have pancaked at near free fall speed

[TrogL]

25. Really? You expect the same construction techniques for a tall office tower and a parking garage?

...and gravity goes what direction?

[ixion]

27. I was being facetious

but hey, they blamed the collapse on the floors pancaking, so, it's not THAT different... ;)

[Joanne98]

15. Oh yeah I forgot cheap Chinese steel that sux!

I hope we're not buying any of that crap for our infrastructure projects. BOOM!

[parkia00]

36. You know that for a fact eh?

Or is blaming it all on China or some other for foreign entity simply easier rather than looking at the possibility that western contractors and engineers can also be guilty of cutting corners and design flaws. Sheesh!

[wordpix]

39. hey, we had a new school project with good ol USA concrete that collapsed

It was "only" the new sidewalks and curbs so it didn't make news except in my small town.

[RebelOne]

4. Here's the story from our local news station.

www.wsbtv.com/index.html

[unapatriciated]

31. Thanks for the link...

seems it's the same contractor who built the bridge that collapsed in Atlanta botanical garden.
http://www.wsbtv.com/video/19896093/index.html

Hardin Construction was sited for that collapse.

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/12/15/daily83.html

[liberal N proud]

6. Nothing on the national news yet

All Bernie Madoff and Michael Jackson.

[damntexdem]

16. But where's Billy Mays?

There's a weird one. I'm sorry he's dead; but at least he won't be blasting at me from my TV screen any more. There are products that I will never ever purchase because he pitched them.

[emilyg]

17. Fox had it.

[drm604]

23. It was on CNN a while ago. n/t

[get the red out]

12. I wonder how old the structure is?

http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/parking_garage_collapse_in_atlanta/22234/

Here are some pictures.

[unapatriciated]

32. Hardin Construction was the contractor,

they were sited for the Atlanta Botanical Garden bridge collapse earlier this year.

[damntexdem]

18. All those cars crushed. Hey, do you suppose that this is to help the economy?

There'll be a good number of people in the Atlanta area in the market for automobiles now. ;-)

[RamboLiberal]

26. One guy had to run in to stairwell

"I was driving in the parking deck and I saw the deck collapsing. I saw concrete and cars falling," said Matt Jones.

Jones told WSBTV.com that he jumped out of his vehicle and ran into a nearby stairwell.

"I left my car sitting there," said Jones, who was heading to L.A. Fitness gym on his day off.

“I was walking out, there was boom, lots of air, lots of dust everywhere,” an eyewitness told Channel 2 Action News reporter Jodie Fleischer.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/19892813/detail.html

[Blue Diadem]

42. That had to be terrifying. n/t

[tomreedtoon]

28. Damn! Should've been the Westin Peachtree car park.

That whole building is the worst designed hotel I've ever seen. Handicapped people can't even get into the building; there's two huge humps AND an uphill grade if you want to take your wheelchair (or pull your wheeled luggage) from the garage to the entrance. And then you have to enter through motorized Mixmaster revolving doors...and no elevator to the lobby, you must CRAM yourself and your luggage onto an escalator!

That is the garage that deserved to collapse, not this other place.

[Selatius]

34. My money says the construction company cut corners to save money on constructing the thing.

It's nothing new. There was a contractor that was hired to rebuild one of the smashed levees in New Orleans, and a news report found that rather than properly attaching the appropriate rubber stoppers between the slabs of concrete that comprised the levee wall, the contractor simply stuffed newspaper into the gaps as a cheap replacement.

[wordpix]

40. it's also the lack of inspections on projects - case in point, our local school project

The bigwig construction manager (CM) who does concrete business with the state lives in our town and gave us such a "deal." It included a non-sue clause, i.e. our town can't sue the CM. A million things went wrong with the school project and inspections of the contractors' work became an issue, leading to lawsuits against the contractors, but not one public official has said a word against our CM. Of course not, since the stupid town can't sue the CM. Not to mention, the CM family donates to repukes and repukes run the town. :wtf:

[surrealAmerican]

45. Car parks don't collapse near the centre of Atlanta city.

Now we need to translate our news back into American English.