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Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Wow! Sounds like this inquiry is one of five investigations underway. A real lawyer's picnic. I would have thought one engineering firm with all appropriate disciplines, plus a lawyer or two, would have been enough to get to the bottom of this. But at least with all this investigating, information will be made public, including these live streamed sessions.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Just putting this out there, but shouldn't this be being carried out by the PEO as opposed to a public inquiry?

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

The PEO is doing one as well. Reading the Commissioner's opening statement, there are separate investigations ongoing by the Police, PEO, Coroner, and Ministry of Labour. But I think it is good that at least one of these investigations is public.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Why not by the PEO? Because the PEO has no jurisdiction insofar as determining fault or assigning blame. If the fault lies with anyone other than a professional member of the PEO, the PEO can make no determination. They can decide only whether the professional service was unskilled or unprofessional. If they make a finding of unskilled practice, their finding might be taken into consideration in subsequent legal proceedings, but it carries very little weight in the legal process.

BA

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

This inquiry is broad based, and engineering issues are only part of the story.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

I went through a bunch of the exhibit documents and there does not appear to be an engineering sealed set of structural drawings. At best, all I could locate was a bunch of shop drawings without seal prepared by York Steel... I could not find Architectural drawings, either...

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

From the earlier thread:

It gets more interesting, "A former manager of the Elliot Lake, Ont., mall says the owner was warned as far back as 2008 that if he didn’t make repairs to the mall roof it could collapse.

Brian England says he was with Bob Nazarian, the 66-year-old Richmond Hill businessman who owns the mall, when Nazarian was told of the consequences of not doing repair work to the mall’s roof.

“The architect plain and simply told Mr. Nazarian that if he didn’t proceed with these repairs,” said England, “that we could find that his structure was at the point of deterioration that it possibly could collapse."


Brian England is not on the list of Witnesses...

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

(OP)
I'm hoping that somewhere the video testimony will be posted online. I think that people here would be amazed with the engineer's inability to answer any of the lawyer's questions.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

according to the web site, it's supposed to be posted... as well as transcripts.

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

(OP)
Yes, it seems they posted the videos on the webpage today.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

For the benefit of people who dont have much regular access to Canadian press reports etc.... and I wish I had bookmarked the relevant web page.... there was an article earlier this week where an engineer (I believe he was a field engineer during construction, rather than the design engineer) who stated that at the time of construction he had almost zero experience with membrane sealing of flat roofs (and he conceded he had acquired virtually zero experience in the last 30 years). The article also stated that this was the second mall collapse he has been associated with, and presently is under a restiction not to practice engineering, except under the supervision of another P.Eng.

I accept that published info is not always 100% factual or reliable, but there is likely to be an awefull lot that any practicing engineer can learn from this inquiry.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

(OP)
That's a pretty damning article on the waterproofing company.

Here's one about the mall's owner: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/10/ellio...

I'm sure a number of people here have stories about dealing with similar owners.



Documents filed at the public inquiry into the tragedy show the former manager of the Algo Centre Mall and its adjoining hotel in Elliot Lake, Ont., quit after claiming owner Bob Nazarian pressed her to break the law.

According to the statement, Nazarian told her the city and fire department were conspiring to drive up costs related to the mall so that he would lose the facility, although why he might have thought so is not clear.

“Bob advised that he would not let that happen, so I was advised not to waste time or money following the fire department’s directions on the inspection reports,” she said.

"Nazarian, who is slated to testify in about four or five weeks, faces a contempt citation in Divisional Court on March 20 for failing to turn over documents demanded by the commission."

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

That in conjunction with England's comment is likely digging a bigger pit... The OPP are likely following the hearing quite closely.

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

The NORR report comissioned by the OPP is very interesting. It lays out the events pretty well from design to collapse and all the parties involved in between. So is a good read other than periodically NORR get's a little 'rightous' in assessing fault. The PEO is pretty tight lipped about whose conducting their investigation at least I haven't been able to find much out about their end.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Quote (dik)

I went through a bunch of the exhibit documents and there does not appear to be an engineering sealed set of structural drawings. At best, all I could locate was a bunch of shop drawings without seal prepared by York Steel... I could not find Architectural drawings, either...

Even if the sealed structural drawings do exist I have found that attorneys do not always appreciate the importance of presenting them in court or properly tracking versions. When I am doing expert testimony and someone pushes a report or a portion of an engineering report under my nose without a seal (even my own), I have occasionally objected and refused to comment. Engineers and engineering companies in many jurisdictions are required to maintain official copies for just this very purpose.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

The one news article indicated the NORR Report was 700 pages... is this just an executive summary? or was the news article wrong... Give me something to read tonight.

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

dik,
This 140 pages is Volume 1 of 3. The other two volumes are shown in the contents to be previous reports, photographs, test results, etc., and apparently haven't been released to the public.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Thanks Hokie... downloaded it last night and started reading it... I've started to form some opinions, but, will wait until I've completed it...

8" hollowcore spanning 32' and 'design to' a superimposed load of 120 psf... (It has a 2" 'composite' topping)... moving loads, too... I've done 8" HC to 32' for 40 psf loading for apartments (not composite) and this was 'stretching' it... The upward camber when I last looked was approx 1.5"... Pretty good reason for it not working well and leaking since day 1... also doesn't appear to have much criticism of the Architectural design...

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

I've been pretty immersed in watching the recorded video testimony of the inquiry. The design process between the structural, architectural and owner/CM was a new one for me. No one on the design team knew what kind of roof was going to be installed, especially on a project as odd as this. Unfortunately Mr Hirt has passed so there is not testimony from him. From my understanding, it was almost unintentional that the roof ended up with a 'composite' topping. Had something other than the Peterson roofing been installed, the topping would most likely not have been composite and the situation could have been much worse, much sooner. It could be seen as luck, or a 'sign', that they went with the Peterson roof; it's just unfortunate that the post construction events unfolded the way they did. It seems the property owners over the years didn't want to come to terms with the fact the building needed a tremendous amount of roof work, no matter how many testing and engineering reports they had available.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

Quite simple, really. The deck never had a membrane, but rather depended on concrete to keep the water out. That was just ignorance (in hindsight, some would say). Salt laden water found its way through the concrete to the steel structure. Everybody involved knew about this, and should have known of the eventual consequences, but the deterioration continued, with only token attempts to do something and mollify the occupants. Apportioning blame is not an easy task when so many people participated over the years.

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

...from the Winnipeg Free Press, "TORONTO - A professional engineer faces charges under health and safety laws in connection with last summer's deadly mall collapse in a northern Ontario town, the province's Ministry of Labour announced Monday.

The engineer is alleged to have endangered a worker by providing negligent advice, the ministry said.

In an unusual move, however, it did not name the engineer.

Last June, the roof-deck garage of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ont., caved in. Two women were killed and several others injured.

A judicial inquiry is currently probing the tragedy and provincial police are also investigating.

A second charge against the engineer relates to working in a manner "that may endanger a worker," according to the ministry.

Maximum penalties on conviction are a fine of up to $25,000 and/or up to 12 months imprisonment.

The accused is scheduled to make a first appearance before the Ontario court of justice on May 16 in Elliot Lake ."

Dik

RE: Elliot Lake Collapse Public Inquiry

...also from the Winnipeg Free Press, "TORONTO -- A professional engineer faces charges under health and safety laws in connection with last summer's deadly mall collapse in a northern Ontario town, the province's Ministry of Labour announced Monday.

The engineer is alleged to have endangered a worker by providing "negligent advice," the ministry said.

The Ministry of Labour's Tom Zach told The Canadian Press the accused is Robert Wood, an engineer found guilty of professional misconduct in 2010.

Wood and colleague Gregory Saunders of M.R. Wright and Associates, based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., inspected the mall in Elliot Lake, Ont., as recently as April 2012.

A month later -- just one month before the collapse -- they wrote to say the mall was structurally sound despite finding rust on beams."

Dik

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