| dbo:abstract
|
- On June 16, 2015, shortly after midnight, five Irish J-1 visa students and one Irish-American died and seven others were injured after a balcony on which they were standing collapsed. The group was celebrating a 21st birthday party in Berkeley, California. The balcony was on the 5th floor of an apartment building at 2020 Kittredge Street in Berkeley, then called Library Gardens. The district attorney of Alameda County launched a criminal probe into the incident. In January 2022, one of the injured died from a stroke related to the injuries. In June 2015 Mayor Tom Bates of Berkeley promised a wide-ranging investigation into the cause of the accident. The evidence is overwhelming that dry rot from improper construction caused the collapse, not the weight of the 13 students. Although, as the immediate aftermath photos show, the proximate cause was dry rot, which is caused by excessive moisture intrusion into the supporting wood framing, undermining its structural integrity, the only known investigation report fails to definitively identify the source of moisture, its entry route(s), or the mechanism(s) of its transport. It simply lists 11 "factors which appear to have contributed" without discussion of their relative importance, whether any of the factors was a necessary condition, or which combination of factors were sufficient. The report's format further obfuscates with extensive redactions (some of which are incomplete and thus gratuitous) and by publishing only a poor-quality scan of printouts of the reports. Architect Robert Perry, the author of the as-built vs. as-designed report, focuses exclusively on rainwater entry into the building envelope, and makes observations that appear to be at odds with the evidence. For example, he claims that "dry rot damage [in the collapsed balcony] had occurred along the top of the cantilever balcony deck joists". But the immediate post-collapse photos show that these joists had already disintegrated to the point that they were unidentifiable. Furthermore, he fails to address strong evidence for vapor transport within the building envelope resulting in concealed condensation in the deck's joist cavities. The deck was on the north-facing wall of the building, and has little or no sun exposure for most of the year. The deck joists, made of an engineered wood product known as laminated veneer lumber, were fully enclosed on its exterior surfaces by vapor barrier membranes, yet open to the main building's joist cavities. The deck's joist cavity temperature is dominated by exposure to the outdoor environment, while the interior joist cavity temperature is dominated by the conditioned spaces sandwiched above and below, the latter being warmer most of the time. This configuration causes the deck's joist cavities to condense water vapor supplied by the interior and retain it as liquid, creating optimum conditions for the growth of wood-destroying fungus commonly called dry rot. Two independent and detailed reviews of the structural design found no deficiencies in the deck's load-bearing capacity. As designed and built, and absent the dry rot, the deck would have easily supported itself and the 13 people. But with the joists rotted to powder, the only remaining strength was in the ceramic enclosure, which consisted of the unreinforced concrete deck and stucco soffit and walls. The resulting ceramic box beam, devoid of its former LVL joists, and not intended as a structural support, was vulnerable to brittle failure without warning. Pre-collapse exterior views of the collapsed fifth-floor balcony and the identical fourth-floor balcony are available in Google Street View. (en)
- Tharla tragóid i gceantar Berkeley (in aice le San Francisco) ar 16 Meitheamh 2015) nuair a thug balcóin uaidh le linn cóisire a bhí ar bun in árasán.. Maraíodh seisear as Éirinn agus gortaíodh seachtar eile daoine óga de bharr na tragóide.. Maraíodh cúigear mac léinn Éireannach, Lorcán Miller, 21, Niccolai Schuster, 21, Eoghan Culligan, 21, Olivia Burke, 21, Eimear Walsh, 21 agus mac léinn amháin GaelMheiriceánach, Ashley Donohoe a bhí 22 (xol ceathair le hOlivia Burke a bhí inti; b'as Baile Átha Cliath don chúigear eile a maraíodh).. Cúpla lá níos déanaí, chuir na póilíní agus údarás áitiúil Berkeley deireadh lena bhfiosrúcháin go tobann, agus a rá nach mbeadh aon cás dlí á dtógaint acu faoin gcás Bhíothas sásta gurbh críon-lobhadh i ngiarsaí struchtúrtha an bhalcóin ba chúis leis an dtimpiste. Ach bhí na mic léinn, 13 acu, ag cóisireacht ar an mbalcóin a bhí 2m86. (ga)
|
| rdfs:comment
|
- On June 16, 2015, shortly after midnight, five Irish J-1 visa students and one Irish-American died and seven others were injured after a balcony on which they were standing collapsed. The group was celebrating a 21st birthday party in Berkeley, California. The balcony was on the 5th floor of an apartment building at 2020 Kittredge Street in Berkeley, then called Library Gardens. The district attorney of Alameda County launched a criminal probe into the incident. In January 2022, one of the injured died from a stroke related to the injuries. (en)
- Tharla tragóid i gceantar Berkeley (in aice le San Francisco) ar 16 Meitheamh 2015) nuair a thug balcóin uaidh le linn cóisire a bhí ar bun in árasán.. Maraíodh seisear as Éirinn agus gortaíodh seachtar eile daoine óga de bharr na tragóide.. Maraíodh cúigear mac léinn Éireannach, Lorcán Miller, 21, Niccolai Schuster, 21, Eoghan Culligan, 21, Olivia Burke, 21, Eimear Walsh, 21 agus mac léinn amháin GaelMheiriceánach, Ashley Donohoe a bhí 22 (xol ceathair le hOlivia Burke a bhí inti; b'as Baile Átha Cliath don chúigear eile a maraíodh).. (ga)
|