The Hyatt Regency walkway is a warning from history to all civil engineers today.
. At the time, a tea dance was being held in the hotel's lobby when the walkways fell. This was the deadliest non-deliberate structural collapse in U.S. history and the deadliest structural collapse until the tragic events of the World Trade Center some 20 years later.Here, we'll take a quick look at what happened.
The connections spectacularly failed, and the fourth-floor and second-floor bridges plunged to the floor of the crowded atrium below. As the dust settled, piles of steel, concrete, and glass encased many bodies. Rescue teams would later liken the scene to a war zone. Rescue teams arrived at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and began a 14-hour rescue operation. The team included members from the Fire Brigade, EMS units, and doctors from five local hospitals.
The fallen bridges weren't the only issue. To add insult to injury, damaged sprinkler systems gushed water into the atrium. These systems were supplied from tanks rather than city supplies. Because of this, it was not possible to turn them off. Trapped victims now faced the very real prospect of being drowned.
They changed the design to include two sets of tie rods to be used instead of the intended continuous ones. One set was used to connect the fourth floor to the atrium roof. The other attached the second-floor walkway to the fourth-floor walkway. The fallout was pretty serious. Engineers and firms that were found responsible had their licenses revoked, some even went bankrupt. Compensation claims from the courts awarded victims around $140 million dollars, and there were also large insurance payouts.
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