Hultgren Construction Collapse Case Study

Matthew E. Barnes was a firefighter who could be called many things including a hero, a friend, a husband, a father and even an angel. The story begins like many 9/11 stories do, with the planes being hijacked, he was one of the men working that day in the New York City Fire Department that would go into the World Trade Center, but would never come out. The 37-year old resident of Monroe, New York was a father to three boys and the husband to Ms. Susan Barnes; he would spend all his available time with his family, somehow slipping out of chores and such just to go fishing with his boys. Two years before the 9/11 he had saved two twins, Isabella and Jacob Kalodner from a fire in their mother, Linda Kalodner’s apartment, by climbing up a 100-foot aerial ladder to the 10th story to save the 6 week old twins.

That was my thought when I got to the first floor of the World Trade Center. In the building, the mezzanine or the lowest point of the tower was a huge mall. I thought being down and actually know that I had a chance to get away from that horrid place after the bombing was a relief but it is not. I was horrified when I got to the mezzanine level of the tower. There were dead bodies lying around everywhere outside the building. It is as if I was in a war and they were the casualties. Those bodies lying on the floor got blown to pieces by the impact from falling down. It was an unbelievable sight. To think that during a normal day your life could be over in just one snap. A part of felt like an over inflated balloon ready to explode. I had made it safe down to the ground. But seeing the things that happened around the plaza did not feel like I was in a safer place. The mall was in ruins, pieces of the building and airplanes were falling off, and windows were battered. As I make my way out, I saw my coworker, Alice, that one I saved from the jammed bathroom door looked very mortified. She cried while moving away from the building. We then saw signs that say “head this way” and so we headed that way. on the other hand, I heard another another crack and I saw the other tower collapsing. I decided to go back inside the building because if I go further out the second building would fall on me. All I could think of during that moment was my family; my wife Jenny, and my son Ben. I did not know what to do anything else but cry. The debris from the building dropped on top of us. Everything was pitch black. It is like when you go to the beach and decided to pack yourself into sa sand. My mouth, my nose, my ears, and my eyes were covered by rubbish. I threw up and checked myself if all of my body parts were still connected to me. Several people were also trapped in this scene. I took some cloth from my clothes and wrapped it around my nose and mouth to keep me from

The survivors of September 9, 2001 will never be the same. While they may be emotionally scarred from the traumatic event, physical scars will also remain on their body. Bruno Dillinger describes that many evacuators lacked skin and hair, and that many evacuators were severely burnt. Despite all the mayhem and chaos, the people in the stairwell kept their wits with them. They did not panic; they were calm. Bruno Dillinger’s description of the first responders walking up the stairs was heartbreaking. He commented, “They were going up to their death. And I was walking down to live.” Despite the fear the firefighters and other responders felt, they rose to the occasion in order to save the lives of many others. The bravery the firefighters and

Smoke and flames were spewing out of gaping holes bored by American Airlines’ Boeing 767 that crashed between the 93 and 99 floors on the North face of the 110- story building. Each of the North Tower floors were roughly an acre. The top 20 floors engulfed in flames, he was staring at a 20- acre fire raging 90 stories above. He thought in his head that, This is the most unbelievable sight I’ve ever seen. Meldrum parked the fire truck on the West Street in front of the

April 19, 1995, 9:02 a.m: a bomb was set off beneath the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The bomb damaged the structural support beams and the Northern support columns. Half of the building collapsed. 168 people died (Cook 5). Eric McKisick, a district manager, recalls the incident, ¨I made an assumption that, hey, everybody is out, everybody is good, and I left at that point. It wasn't ´till much later that I saw the devastation and understood they didn't respond because they couldn't.” Not only were there a large number of casualties, 300 people were also injured, some of whom were physically impaired for the rest of their life. A child who was in the building at the time of the explosion states, “I have no recollection of that day, but I’m reminded everyday about it because of my breathing problems (Brandes, Heide, Schapiro).”

On the afternoon of March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in the 10-floor Asch Building, a block east of Manhattan's Washington Square. This is where 500 mostly young immigrant girls were producing shirts for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Within minutes, it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders weren't tall enough. Exits were locked, and the narrow fire escapes were inadequate. Panicked, many jumped from the windows to their deaths. People on the street watched in horror. The flames were under control in less than a half hour, but 146 people perished, 123 of them women. It was the worst disaster in the city's history.

At 9:03 a.m. a massive bomb resting inside a rented Ryder truck destroyed half of the nine story federal building in downtown Oklahoma City. It also claimed the lives of 169 men, women, and children, while injuring hundreds

In Ozark, Missouri on Monday, June 16th, a 911 call was made about a fire. When officials arrived to the scene, the Clemons family were not present. During the same day, Arron Clemons (left) called 911 saying he was in that fire, where he was then taken to a hospital. While he was there, a statement was made to the police saying that “he had tied up his wife and set fire to the house after she died,” as well as saying he "taped his wife's whole body to a pole by wrapping her around her feet, knees, butt, jaw and head with boxing tape in the basement.” On Tuesday, June 17th, Bailey Clemons (right) was found in the burned remains of the house with a sock in her mouth and a belt wrapped around her neck, as well as being found near a pole with

One of the events that stood out was the incident of the last train to leave Houston at 9:45 a.m. The train contained 95 passengers. When the train left, the tracks were completely washed out. Passengers were then forced to transfer to a relief train in order to complete their journey. Unfortunately, since there was a lot of debris on the track, the progress at which the train was moving at was at the pace of a crawl. When the train tried to return, the rising water blocked its path preventing it from moving. 10 travelers decided to leave the train and go to a lighthouse where 200 people were already at. The 85 travelers that remained on the train were killed by a storm surge. Another big story that was known among the deaths of people was about the 90 orphan children and the 10 sisters from St. Mary’s Orphans Asylum that died. Orphans were found tied together with a cloth line to a nun. This was because the nuns had promised to the orphan children they would never let go no matter what and to keep them close. A witness with the name of Smith Austin said, “Tress began to fall state shingles, planks sand debris of every imaginable kind were being hurled through the air…” Anna Delz was one of the survivors of the storm. Anna Delz was thrown into the water and found 18 miles away from her

The construction of the Skyline Plaza in Fairfax County came to a halt early in the afternoon on March 2, 1973. It was originally speculated by the workers on site that the crane assisting in lifting materials to the higher sections of the building failed and fell into the side of the building causing the collapse. However, Author Dov Kaminetsky conducted research alongside the National Bereau of Standards(NBS), and published his book, Design and Construction: Lessons from Forensic Investigations.[2] Kaminetsky provides the conclusion of NBS 's investigation that the collapse was a result of shear construction error. The building began to collapse as construction workers proceeded to remove the concrete shoring between the middle sector of the building, specifically the 22nd and 23rd floor. The shoring process requires the placement of a concrete structure to support a building while under construction to prevent the collapse of the operation. The result of the collapse took the lives of 14 construction workers and 35 other individuals near the building. With proper critique to policies and evaluation of work orders, further disasters may be prevented in the future in the United States. So how did theinvestigationn of the

I personally think that the closest real world example that could relate to this incident is 9/11. Minus the fact that it was a terrorist attack and could possibly have been an inside job, it is another example of a surprise attack that occurred with out warning that killed about 3,000 people and injured 6,000 more. It also had the effect of collateral damage because when the buildings collapsed, chunks of steal rebar and concrete fell crushing people.

An investigation into the design flaw of two floating balconies above the atrium of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, is discussed in this report. The following investigation includes a closer look at disputes in design between the engineering consultants and the fabrication company, as well as an examination of load capacity. In the design, three walkways were intertwined between the second, third, and fourth floors above the hotel’s atrium (Leyendecker, E., Marshall, R., Pfrang, E., & Woodward, K., 1982). The second floor’s walkway was suspended from the fourth, which was suspended from the roof. The third floor’s walkway was hanging from the roof of the atrium, independent to the other two. When a collapse occurred on July 17, 1981, the fourth floor, which was suspended from the roof, collapsed and landed on top of the second floor. As a result, both floors crashed into the atrium at ground-level (Leyendecker, E., Marshall, R., Pfrang, E., & Woodward, K., 1982). The main causes of the collapse are questionable engineering ethics, negligence, and disputing agencies. These two factors resulted in a poor foundation with lack of consideration of large stress on the structure (Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse, 2006).

The Howard Street Tunnel fire that occurred on July 18, 2001 was a serious emergency that required the participation of local, state, and federal governments in order to properly respond to the incident. The accident occurred in the 1.7 mile tunnel that is located anywhere from

Imagine that it is Spring and you are in Hardin, Missouri when the horrible nightmare happened! In nineteen ninety-three Hardin, Missouri got flooded and fifty-five thousand houses got flooded or completely destroyed. About half of one thousand five hundred seventy-six graves got swept away. Some of the coffins moved about eighteen miles away in distance from Hardin, Missouri. DMORT rounded up six hundred coffins and three thousand four hundred bones. One hundred twenty nine skulls got buried in the fair grounds. Some bodies were so old that they could not put them together cause they were rotten! There were seven hundred ninety three bodies missing but the DMORT team found about

The strange event happened on October 29, 2026 on a cool autumn day in Station Square, Massachusetts. Channel 200 had been showing the mishap all day long. The news reporter hurried to the ruined party store and spoke to the store’s owner. The owner seemed very horror-struck to the reporter. He told the news reporter all about the catastrophe that had occurred. ‘’this afternoon started off normally, nothing new at all. Then just as it was time or the store’s announcer to speak, the store’s food and supplies started to...’ ’Don’t stop, said the news reporter, filled with curiosity, tell me more. ’If I tell you, replied the store owner, you’ll think I’m crazy.’’ “Try me”. ‘Okay, if you insist. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. ’The news