The company that built the practice facility in Dallas that failed under the stress of 70 mile-per-hour winds faces significant liability to the folks injured when the steel-and-tarp structure collapsed to earth.
The legal problems could increase dramatically if other customers fear that their own buildings could soon mimic the first two pigs' houses, and in turn seek to force the manufacturer to upgrade the facilities to brick.
So it's not surprising that Summit Structures is engaged in some serious damage control.
Per the Associated Press, Nathan Stobbe of Summit Structures has sent a letter to clients explaining that a new roof was applied to the building in 2008 not because of structural issues, but because the Cowboys didn't like how the thing looked.
"Please be assured that your buildings have been designed, engineered
and manufactured to meet or exceed all local applicable building
codes," Stobbe said in the letter.
Stobbe also writes that the roof was changed in 2008 "after discussions with the Cowboys organization to improve the
aesthetics of the building and had nothing to do with structural
issues."
It'll be interesting to see whether the Cowboys agree -- and whether any documents created at the time corroborate Stobbe's contention.
Summit Structures does some damage control
Posted by Mike Florio on July 10, 2009 9:06 PM ET
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11 Comments 
Latest stories in: Dallas Cowboys, Latest News and Rumors, Legal, NFL Mobile Exclusives - Legal, Top Stories
Latest stories in: Dallas Cowboys, Latest News and Rumors, Legal, NFL Mobile Exclusives - Legal, Top Stories
"The company that built the practice facility in Dallas that failed under the stress of 70 mile-per-hour winds"
Estimated 70 mph on the ground, measured laterally. Wind speeds at the top of the structure were likely much higher, and possibly blowing perpendicular to the ground.
But yeah, it's old news that just the fabric skin was replaced. Not really sure about the relevance of anything happening in Miami-Dade County, Fla.
♪ Some people ain't no damn good
♪ You can't trust 'em, you cant love 'em
♪ No good deed goes unpunished
♪ And I don't mind bein' their whippin' boy
♪ I've had that pleasure for years & years
♪ No no I never was a sinner, tell me what else can I do?
♪ Second best is what you get 'til you learn to bend the rules
♪ And time respects no person, what you lift up must fall
♪ They're waiting outside to claim my tumblin' walls
♪ Saw my picture in the paper!
♪ Read the news around my face!
♪ And now some people don't want to treat me the same!
♪ When the walls, come tumblin' down!
♪ When the walls, come crumblin', crumblin'
♪ When the walls, come tumblin', tumblin', down!.......
Vox:
"Not really sure about the relevance of anything happening in Miami-Dade County, Fla."
Miami-Dade County has the toughest wind resistance requirements in the country. So the assumption is, if it is strong enough to pass there, it is strong enough to pass anywhere.
The whole "fabric strength" issue is a red herring. Ripping fabric should not have collapsed the steel frame. The structures are supposed to be designed to withstand a fabric failure.
Maybe the fabric should be designed to rip at a certain windspeed to keep the fabric from becoming like a sail putting who knows how much pressure against the steel frame.
Microbursts can be wicked. It's entirely possible that it's not a design flaw, and the structure experienced conditions that it was not designed to withstand.
My house, a double wide prefab (mobile?) home withstands winds of 70+ at least a few times every freaking year (I've got the anemometer to prove it).
Jerry Jones can't spend money on a structure better than my crappy house? He's cheap.
Regardless of esthetics (seriously can anyone believe this is the excuse?? wtf) engineers are mandated to build structures according to, you know, actual standards. I am an engineer. I've built things that if they break cost millions of dollars. These people had to build a "roof". They can spin it all they want. They've lost. Their work needs to be reviewed. They need to fix their mistakes. Yeah I know the owners have a fiduciary responsibility to cover their ass. More importantly the owners have a non-fiduciary responsibility to avoid dealing with this fallout. Someone's gonna be the fallguy for what was likely a topdown management cost decision performed by a fratboy stooge incapable of actual thought. Regardless. The dominos need to fall. Their work needs to be checked before anyone else is injured. And their organization needs the legal bitchslap. Boom boom boom! This is ridiculous and a message should be sent. Sorry, I'm of the old school where accountability mattered. I'm sure that offends some. I could care less.
Vox:
You hit the nail on the head. The fabric system is supposed to be designed to come away from the frame before the frames are stressed to failure.
I'm not an engineer, but I did some research into using one of these structures a few years ago. The company mentioned in the article linked to the post, Sprung Instant Structures, had a tornado go right through several of their structures in Salt Lake City. The fabric tore away but the frames remained intact.
I would think the same thing would have happened here, but again, I'm no engineer.
"My house, a double wide prefab (mobile?) home"
That just doesn't surprise me, DarthPirate. It also doesn't surprise me that you don't get the dynamics of a microburst. Here's as good a place to learn about them as any. The second one is particularly interesting because it details some of the damage that's been caused by microbursts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbursts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_microbursts
* July 13, 1890 - A microburst capsized the vessel Sea Wing on Lake Pepin between Wisconsin and Minnesota, killing 98 people.[citation needed]
* A particularly violent microburst is a possible alternative explanation to the 1961 sinking of the American school brigantine Albatross. The ship's captain Dr. Christopher Sheldon claimed that the ship was hit by a white squall on the voyage from Progreso, Yucatán, to Nassau in the Bahamas.[citation needed]
* A microburst squall with windspeeds of 80 miles per hour is responsible for capsizing and sinking the Pride of Baltimore in May 1986 in the Caribbean, about 250 miles (400 km) north of Puerto Rico. The ship took the lives of her captain and three of her other 11 crew members.[1]
* August 14, 1996 - A severe thunderstorm and its accompanying dry microburst hit the northwest portion of the Phoenix metro area – ripping off tile roofs and causing $160 million in damage. An Arizona record wind gust of 115 miles per hour is recorded at the Deer Valley Airport. A few locations had to go without power for several days.[2]
* In the early hours of September 7, 1998, a microburst hit the city of Syracuse, New York. Three people were killed and the area suffered $130 million in damages.[3]
* On March 12, 2006 at approximately 8:10 AM, a severe microburst with winds varying from 70 to 90 mph (140 km/h) damaged large portions of Lawrence, Kansas. Reported damage included downed power lines, stop lights and trees, overturned semi-trailers, collapsed farm silos and damage to roofs. Seventy buildings on the University of Kansas campus reported damage. In total, over $8 million in damages was estimated.[4]
* On November 16, 2008, a microburst during a very severe supercell thunderstorm unleashed major havoc on the suburb of The Gap in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.[5]
* On February 12, 2009 high winds from a microburst caused a 92 mph wind gust in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. Several damages were reported including roofs and garages collapsing.
* On May 2, 2009, a microburst struck the Dallas Cowboys indoor practice facility, causing the roof to collapse. 12 people were hospitalized.
"Regardless of esthetics (seriously can anyone believe this is the excuse?? wtf)"
Sure. Why not? Aesthetics are just about always a concern when you're talking about big structures like this. If you are truly an engineer then surely you understand that "things" that are built to last will often fail if subjected to extremes that exceed the limits of the design. Even the things that you've built. Are you saying that your "things" are unbreakable, no matter the conditions that they're exposed to? The Titanic was widely publicized as "unsinkable", and I'm sure that for all intents and purposes it was, so long as it didn't run into any icebergs.
Yes their work needs to be reviewed, but it's very possible that the storm that flattened this structure exceeded the limits that the structure was designed to withstand. Microbursts can collapse hard, permanent buildings. Why is anyone surprised that one could collapse what's basically a big tent?
"On March 12, 2006 at approximately 8:10 AM, a severe microburst with winds varying from 70 to 90 mph (140 km/h) damaged large portions of Lawrence, Kansas...."
Lived there when it happened this almost makes it sound less bad than it was. It did weird things like rip the actual light portion off the stoplight arm. Along with the usual things you would expect like downing power lines, blowing out windows and taking down trees and tree limbs.
Vox, you design things to the conditions. If microbursts are a relatively common event then you'd design to account for them. With statistically uncommon things like 100 year storms then it's an issue of standards, specs and CYA. And aesthetics shouldn't override standards ever, sorry if you believe otherwise.
I don't know what the standards are like in Texas for buildings of that size and location, but up here in Canada for instance, if you don't take into account common conditions you're liable. This is one of the first things they teach you in engineering law. Failure to take into account snow load, as an example, makes you liable.
Re: have I built unbreakable things? Really, how do I respond to such an idiotic question? Grow up.