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Coordinates: 39°05′06″N 94°34′48″W / 39.085°N 94.580°W / 39.085; -94.580
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The serious flaws of the revised design were compounded by the fact that both designs placed the bolts directly through a [[welded joint]] connecting two C-channels, the weakest structural point in the box beams. Photographs of the wreckage show excessive deformations of the cross-section.<ref name="engineering">{{cite web| publisher=Engineering.com| accessdate=2006-06-01| url=http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/175/Walkway-Collapse.aspx| title=Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse|date=2006-10-24}}</ref> During the failure the box beams split along the weld and the nut supporting them slipped through the resulting gap between the two C-channels which had been welded together.
The serious flaws of the revised design were compounded by the fact that both designs placed the bolts directly through a [[welded joint]] connecting two C-channels, the weakest structural point in the box beams. Photographs of the wreckage show excessive deformations of the cross-section.<ref name="engineering">{{cite web| publisher=Engineering.com| accessdate=2006-06-01| url=http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/175/Walkway-Collapse.aspx| title=Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse|date=2006-10-24}}</ref> During the failure the box beams split along the weld and the nut supporting them slipped through the resulting gap between the two C-channels which had been welded together.


Investigators concluded that the basic problem was a lack of proper communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates and Havens Steel. In particular, the drawings prepared by Jack D. Gillum and Associates were only preliminary sketches but were interpreted by Havens as finalized drawings. Jack D. Gillum and Associates failed to review the initial design thoroughly, and accepted Havens' proposed plan without performing basic calculations that would have revealed its serious intrinsic flaws — in particular, the doubling of the load on the fourth-floor beams.<ref name="ua"/>
Investigators concluded that the basic problem was a lack of proper communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates and Havens Steel. In particular, the drawings prepared by Jack D. Gillum and Associates were only preliminary sketches but were interpreted by Havens as finalized drawings. Jack D. Gillum and Associates failed to review the initial design thoroughly, and accepted Havens' proposed plan without performing basic calculations that would have revealed its serious intrinsic flaws — in particular, the doubling of the load on the fourth-floor beams.<ref name


==Aftermath==
==Aftermath==

Revision as of 17:14, 20 December 2011

Aftermath view. The 4th floor and 2nd floor walkways were positioned at the now boarded entrances. A parallel 3rd floor walkway to the left was left intact
Difference between the design and construction of the walkway support system
View of a cross-section of the 4th floor support beam which fell, together with the 2nd floor support rod passing through its left and right halves vertically
View of the lobby floor, during the first day of the investigation
A major cause of fatalities was the landing of the concrete 4th floor walkway onto the crowded 2nd floor walkway, both seen here

The Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a collapse of an interior suspended skywalk system that occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others[1] during a tea dance. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history.[2]

Background

Construction of the 40-story Hyatt Regency Kansas City began in 1978, and the hotel opened on July 1, 1980, after construction delays, including an incident on October 14, 1979, when 2,700 square feet (250 m2) of the atrium roof collapsed because one of the roof connections on the north end of the atrium failed.[3]

The walkway collapse was the second major structural failure in Kansas City in just over two years. On June 4, 1979, the roof of the unoccupied Kemper Arena collapsed without loss of life. The architects and engineering firms involved in the two collapses were unrelated.

One of the defining features of the hotel was its lobby, which featured a multistory atrium spanned by steel, glass and concrete walkways on the second, third and fourth levels suspended from the ceiling. The walkways were approximately 120 ft (37 m) long[4] and weighed approximately 64,000 lb (29,000 kg).[5] The fourth level walkway aligned directly above the second level walkway.

Disaster

On July 17, 1981, approximately 1,600 people[6] gathered in the atrium to participate in and watch a dance competition. Dozens stood on the walkways. At 7:05 PM, the second-level walkway held approximately 40 people with more on the third and an additional 16 to 20 on the fourth level who watched the activities of crowd in the lobby below.[4] The fourth floor bridge was suspended directly over the second floor bridge, with the third floor walkway offset several meters from the others. Construction difficulties resulted in a subtle but flawed design change that doubled the load on the connection between the fourth floor walkway support beams and the tie rods carrying the weight of both walkways. This new design was barely adequate to support the dead load weight of the structure itself, much less the added weight of the spectators. The connection failed and the fourth floor walkway collapsed onto the second floor and both walkways then fell to the lobby floor below, resulting in 111 immediate deaths and 216 injuries. Three additional victims died after being evacuated to hospitals making the total number of deaths 114 people.[7]

The rescue operation lasted fourteen hours[8] and was performed by many emergency personnel, including crews from 34 fire trucks and EMS units, doctors from five local hospitals and construction crews with heavy equipment.[9] Dr. Joseph Waeckerle, former chief of Kansas City's emergency medical system, directed the rescue effort [1] establishing a makeshift morgue in a ground floor exhibition area,[10] using the hotel's taxicab driveway as a triage area and helping to organize the wounded by greatest need for medical care.[11] Those people who could walk were instructed to leave the hotel to simplify the rescue effort; those mortally injured were told they were going to die and were given morphine.[7] Volunteers arrived from every quarter, including construction companies and building supply stores, bringing "hydraulic jacks, acetylene torches, compressors and generators".[12]

One of the great challenges of the rescue operation was that the hotel's water pipes had been severed by falling debris, flooding the lobby and putting trapped survivors at great risk of drowning. As the pipes were connected to water tanks, not a public source, the flow could not be shut. Mark Williams, the last person rescued alive from the rubble, spent more than nine and a half hours pinned underneath the lower skywalk, both legs pulled out of their sockets.[13] Williams nearly drowned before Kansas City's fire chief realized that the hotel's front doors were trapping the water in the lobby. On his orders, a bulldozer was sent to break through the doors, which allowed the water to pour out of the lobby and thus eliminated the danger to the trapped. Additionally, the lobby was filled with concrete dust, and visibility was poor as the emergency workers had cut the power to prevent fires.[14]

Twenty-nine people were rescued from the rubble.[15]

Investigation

Three days after the disaster, Wayne Lischka, a structural engineer hired by The Kansas City Star newspaper, discovered a significant change of the original design of the walkways. Reportage of the event later earned the Star and its associated publication the Kansas City Times a Pulitzer Prize for local news reporting in 1982.[16] (Radio station KJLA-AM won a National Associated Press award for its reporting on the night of the disaster.)

The two walkways were suspended from a set of 1.25 inch diameter[17] steel tie rods, with the second floor walkway hanging directly under the fourth floor walkway. The fourth floor walkway platform was supported on 3 cross-beams suspended by steel rods retained by nuts. The cross-beams were box girders made from C-channel strips welded together lengthwise, with a hollow space between them. The original design by Jack D. Gillum and Associates specified three pairs of rods running from the second floor to the ceiling. Investigators determined eventually that this design supported only 60 percent of the minimum load required by Kansas City building codes.[18]

Havens Steel Company, the contractor responsible for manufacturing the rods, objected to the original plan of Jack D. Gillum and Associates, since it required the whole of the rod below the fourth floor to be screw threaded in order to screw on the nuts to hold the fourth floor walkway in place. These threads would probably have been damaged and rendered unusable as the structure for the fourth floor was hoisted into position with the rods in place. Havens therefore proposed an alternate plan in which two separate sets of tie rods would be used: one connecting the fourth floor walkway to the ceiling, and the other connecting the second floor walkway to the fourth floor walkway.[3]

This design change would prove fatal. In the original design, the beams of the fourth floor walkway had to support only the weight of the fourth floor walkway itself, with the weight of the second floor walkway supported completely by the rods. In the revised design, however, the fourth floor beams were required to support both the fourth floor walkway and the second floor walkway hanging from it. With the load on the fourth-floor beams doubled, Havens' proposed design could bear only 30 percent of the mandated minimum load (as opposed to 60 percent for the original design).

The serious flaws of the revised design were compounded by the fact that both designs placed the bolts directly through a welded joint connecting two C-channels, the weakest structural point in the box beams. Photographs of the wreckage show excessive deformations of the cross-section.[19] During the failure the box beams split along the weld and the nut supporting them slipped through the resulting gap between the two C-channels which had been welded together.

Investigators concluded that the basic problem was a lack of proper communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates and Havens Steel. In particular, the drawings prepared by Jack D. Gillum and Associates were only preliminary sketches but were interpreted by Havens as finalized drawings. Jack D. Gillum and Associates failed to review the initial design thoroughly, and accepted Havens' proposed plan without performing basic calculations that would have revealed its serious intrinsic flaws — in particular, the doubling of the load on the fourth-floor beams.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). While Jack D. Gillum and Associates itself was discharged of criminal negligence, it lost its license to be an engineering firm.[18]

At least $140 million was awarded to victims and their families in both judgments and settlements in subsequent civil lawsuits; a large amount of this money was from Crown Center Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards which was the owner of the actual hotel real estate (like many hoteliers, Hyatt operates hotels for a fee as a management company, and does not usually own the hotel real estate). Life and health insurance companies probably absorbed even larger uncompensated losses in policy payouts.

The Hyatt tragedy remains a classic model for the study of engineering ethics and errors. Gillum's chief engineer continues to share his experiences with others, in the hope that the mistakes which caused the Hyatt disaster will not be repeated. [citation needed]

After the disaster, the lobby was reconstructed with only one crossing on the second floor. Unlike the previous walkways, the new bridge is supported by several columns underneath it rather than being suspended from the ceiling. As a result, some floors of the hotel now have disconnected sections on opposite sides of the atrium, so it is necessary to go to the second floor to get to the other side.

Several rescuers suffered posttramatic stress due to their experience, and relied upon each other in an informal support group. Jackhammer operator "Country" Bill Allman took his own life due to the stress.[20]

The hotel was renamed the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in 1987, and again the Sheraton Kansas City at Crown Center in 2011. It has been renovated numerous times since, though the lobby retains the same layout and design. It is now one of the city's most luxurious hotels. The hotel's owner announced a $13-million renovation as part of its re-flagging to the Sheraton brand to be completed in 2012.

Memorial

The accident is not marked in any way in the hotel. In 2008, the Skywalk Memorial Foundation announced a fundraising campaign to build a garden and a fountain in Washington Square Park, about a block from the hotel, commemorating the event. Hallmark Cards had pledged $25,000 and the city has offered $200,000.[21] A Korean War memorial is now planned for the park and in May 2009 city officials said they were considering locating the memorial in Hospital Hill Park at 22nd Street and Gillham Road.[22] On July 17, 2011, the 30th anniversary of the collapse, The Skywalk Memorial Foundation unveiled the design for a memorial that is to be erected in Hospital Hill Park on 22nd and Gillham across the street from the Hyatt. Permission had officially been given by The Hyatt and by Hallmark Cards to erect the memorial.[23] On December 7, 2011, the hotel said that it would not contribute to a memorial fund because the hotel is no longer managed by Hyatt and has become a Sheraton hotel.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b David Martin (September 14, 2011). "Former Chiefs doctor Joseph Waeckerle--a veteran of the NFL's concussion wars--is on a mission to protect young players". The Pitch. Kansas City. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  2. ^ Petroski, Henry (1992). To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Structural Design. Vintage. ISBN 978-0679734161.
  3. ^ a b Whitbeck, Caroline (1998). Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 116. ISBN 0521479444.
  4. ^ a b National Bureau of Standards (May 1982). "Investigation of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways Collapse" (PDF). US Department of Commerce. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  5. ^ "Hotel Horror". Kansas City Public Library. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  6. ^ Ramroth, William (2007). Planning for disaster: how natural and man-made disasters shape the built environment. Kaplan Business. p. 177. ISBN 978-1419593734. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ a b Friedman, Mark (2002). Everyday crisis management: how to think like an emergency physician. First Decision Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0971845206. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ Associated Press (July 15, 2001). "Lives forever changed by skywalk collapse". Lawrence Journal World. Lawrence, KS: LJWorld.com. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
  9. ^ "Kansas City, MO Walkways Collapse In Hyatt Hotel". Daily Herald. Chicago: GenDisasters.com. July 19, 1981. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  10. ^ Press, Associated (1997). The Associated Press Library of Disasters: Nuclear and Industrial Disasters. Grolier Academic Reference. p. 67. ISBN 978-0717291762. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Waeckerle, Joseph F. (March 21, 1991). "Disaster Planning and Response". New England Journal of Medicine (324): 815–821.
  12. ^ D'Aulairey, Emily (1982). "There Wasn't Time To Scream". The Reader's Digest: 49–56. They said 'take what you want'" recalls Deputy Fire Chief Arnett Williams, who directed the department's operation that night. "I don't know if all those people got their equipment back. But no one has ever asked for an accounting and no one has ever submitted a bill. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  13. ^ Murphy, Kevin (July 9, 2011). "Hyatt skywalks collapse changed lives forever". Kansas City Star. Retrieved 27 July 2011.
  14. ^ McGuire, Donna. "20 years later: Fatal disaster remains impossible to forget". Kansas City Star. Retrieved 3 December 2011.
  15. ^ Incident Command System for Structural Collapse Incidents; ICSSCI-Student Manual (FEMA P-702 ed.). FEMA. 2006. pp. SM 1–7. Retrieved 10 October 2011. Twenty-nive live victims were removed from under the debris during the rescue operations
  16. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes - Local General or Spot News Reporting". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2010-07-30.
  17. ^ Baura, Gail (2006). Engineering ethics: an industrial perspective. Academic Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0120885312.
  18. ^ a b "Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse". School of Engineering, University of Alabama. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
  19. ^ "Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse". Engineering.com. 2006-10-24. Retrieved 2006-06-01.
  20. ^ Murphy, Kevin (2011). The last dance : the skywalks disaster and a city changed : in memory, 30 years later (1st ed. ed.). Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Star Books. p. 127. ISBN 9781611690125. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ Dirk Johnson (July 27, 2008). "For Many, a Memorial Long Overdue". Kansas City Journal. nyt.com.
  22. ^ "Memorial to Hyatt skywalk collapse considered at Hospital Hill Park". Kansas City Star. kansascity.com. May 12, 2009.
  23. ^ "30 Year Anniversary Hyatt Memorial Unveiled". Kansas City News. July 17, 2011.
  24. ^ "Hyatt Hotels won't donate to skywalk collapse memorial in KC". STLtoday. December 7, 2011.

Further reading

  • Petroski, Henry. To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Structural Design.
  • Marshall, Richard D., [et al.]. Investigation of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkways collapse, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, 1982.
  • Murphy, Kevin. The Last Dance : The Skywalks Disaster and a City Changed : In Memory, 30 Years Later (1st ed. ed.). Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Star Books. ISBN 9781611690125. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) - (All author royalties of this book are being donated to the memorial project)

39°05′06″N 94°34′48″W / 39.085°N 94.580°W / 39.085; -94.580

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