Petach Tikva, the roof of a parking collapsed damaging a few cars. The fire fighters arrived inforce, four big new vehicles, dozens of clownish fighters, TV and of course the Minister who gave an interview. The firefighters received 800 new recruits, and many million shekels additional budget. The Minister had said that the fire fighters organization was resistant to changes, the union was too powerful and the employees received too high salaries. So all the new people and money is not poured into the old organization but created a parallel, semi-independent organization, sharing the same facilities. The idea is, I assume, to introduce some competition in the branch.
To me it is obvious that the collapse was caused by the rains, and the cement plate weakened by sewage piped embedded in it, something that should never be done. So much for Petach Tiwa Engineering Department. They know only to ask for more and more drawings, torturing us poor engineers. How was approved this monstruosity of a parking floor with 4" sewage pipe in it?
3 comments:
The concrete appears to be of very poor quality and reinforcement appears lacking. The inspectors were too lazy to leave their desks to check the pour.
K
The inspectors never leave their desks, they cultivate files. The contractor has to send samples to the laboratory and they give certificates of concrete quality. Then the contractor calls the inspecting company like Standards Institute or Systems and they grant certificates according to detailed checklists.
The desk inspector the may or may not see if the building in fact exist, and give its permit. They rarely agree to put their signatures on a permit exactly because of things like this collapse. I am 80% convinced that this was a structure without a permit, not because it was badly made, but because 80% of Petach Tikva's Buidings have no final permits. The final permits is based on about 100 partial permits, all very difficult to get, like electric permit, fire fighting permit, water company permit, etc.
Oh..poor car owners. They parked in a closed area to protect their valuable vehicles, only to return and find that their cars are buried deep in debris. If only the structure was reinforced so that even a strong downpour wouldn't collapse it.
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