Dear Professor Earl, This letter concerns the Hard Rock Hotel in downtown New Orleans and the failure it experienced during construction. Saturday, October 12, 2019, the 16th floor collapsed, which lead to the collapse of the 17th floor, 18th floor, and the western lower exterior side. This killed 3 individuals who were presently constructing this building, as well as injuring 18 more. Fortunately, this occurred on a weekend, otherwise the casualties would have been much higher. OSHA’s investigation showed that the following items lead to failure: - 16th floor beams under designed for load capacity - The western side exterior bay was not tied into the structure - Cantilever exceeded manufactures guidance - Inadequate design of structural steel connection This breach of manufacture guidelines and lack of proper load use led to the tragedy. The engineer who put a stamp on the plans should have reviewed it more thoroughly, and the city's building department should have someone more qualified to review plans. The public was rightly outraged by this event, spurring the city to pass a new law to have a peer review done of all work completed for high rise structures. Hopefully, this will prevent any more tragedies and encourage engineers and cities to be more thorough with their calculations and have better qualified individuals checking their work. Best Regards, Austin Banks References https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/orleans/hard-rock-collapse/hard-rock-engineerswillful-violations-led-to-buildings-collapse-osha-citation-says/289-36d3cbb0-fd7a-464b-8f459ead00123347 https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region6/04032020
