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Once they got the crane off it was clear there was considerable/a bunch/a whole lotta (choose your adjective) damage done to the roof. From my seat, much of the hurt was because the crane landed on the HVAC units on the roof and crunched them into the building. I think I've mentioned, I understand the building is a internet co-location/switch/distribution center. A box filled with other boxes that need a lot of cooling. I want to say there are a least a half-dozen or more automobile-size HVAC units on top of a structure that's not much bigger than a couple of 7-11's. In some ways it is just a refrigerated bunker.
Maybe the lawyers and insurers will punish the developers so severely that they they will never build to minimum standards again.
The Link (as well as The Gramercy over on North & Glenwood) were of similar construction types as the Metropolitan. I watched all of them being built.
Lucky they did not join in a firestorm like the ones in Berlin after a bombing run.
Several years ago, a townhouse community (Pine Knolls) on Capital lost 20 units after one caught on fire from a dropped cigarette in pine straw around 1 home.
Had we seen a high wind like then, might have taken down many of the tinderboxes.
It could have been worse for sure, but there was wind and it blew toward the Quorum building. (Probably a good thing it wasn't toward the Link) There were bits of charred wood and other building products found all over downtown over to City Plaza and trees and shrubs burned a block away. As far as the crane, without doing a structural analysis, no way to know what would have happened if it hit the other building. However, it did not seem to do massive structural damage to the building it did hit, which was lower and the crane moving faster than it would have been hitting a taller structure, so there's that.
ANY structure and it's fire protection systems, both passive and active, is only designed primarily to give occupants time to get themselves to safety in a fire. Same goes for PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo buildings. Things are designed for a certain number of hours of fire resistance, 1,2 and 3 hours being the most common. Steel can lose strength in a fire and collapse. Concrete, as seen on the parking deck of this building, when exposed to fire, will begin to spall and expose rebar and lose strength and may collapse. Sprinklers only have a certain amount of water flow available to them. Pop more than say 10-15 heads on an upper floor of a building and you're done as far as water pressure in the rest of the building until the fire department gets there and can pump more into the connections outside. The building code is all about getting people out.
And yes, it's the 2006 IBC that raised the allowable height. And there was an even bigger fire in LA a couple years ago in almost this exact same circumstance, except it wasn't quite as close to other occupied buildings.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is some discussion in Raleigh or Durham to modify things with local ordinances, which cities and states are always free to do to go above and beyond state and national codes. Or for the state building code council to look into like straw around multi family and the revisions to soffits or the reflected sun on low-e windows. Then again, I also won't be surprised if nothing is changed. Sometimes things happen and reasonable measures can't stop it.
Builders can always exceed minimum code. The hotels in North Hills were not built as firetraps probably because the hotel chains would never accept such junk in their name. How would it look in the Hotel world if a famous chain property suffered severe loss of life in a tinderbox fire.
I'm still confused with what the Link was built with. The county site says "Exterior Precast Concrete" and "Construction Type Exposed Steel". But people have alluded to the Link being built just like the building under construction (wood frame).
I have to say though, that the Link's building really did hold up well and while yes other factors played a role in it being saved, I also believe the way it was built helped it tremendously!
And I really take exception to this comment of yours CapitalBlvd "The people now renting downtown might have to forego one night of boozing a month to pay for a safe home, but they may still be alive to keep the downtown bars happy" and actually find it be rather callous! These people that were displaced are hard working adults! Many live there because they can actually walk to their job not because they are boozers!!! My daughter, a recent college graduate (graduated last May), had multiple job offers from Tech companies prior to even graduating! She was on the Dean's list semester after semester and since graduating has been working her butt off trying to be a productive self sufficient young adult. She choose this area because of her job not because of alcohol! You have to be one sick, miserable person to make a statement like that!
Sorry, my daughter graduated NC State Magna c-u-m Laude with Highest departmental Honors. She lives on Wake Forest Road to be close to work. I do appreciate that not everyone's living in downtown to slurp booze.
The issue is that developers are playing callously by creating junk camouflaged as luxury housing.
It could have been worse for sure, but there was wind and it blew toward the Quorum building. (Probably a good thing it wasn't toward the Link) There were bits of charred wood and other building products found all over downtown over to City Plaza and trees and shrubs burned a block away. As far as the crane, without doing a structural analysis, no way to know what would have happened if it hit the other building. However, it did not seem to do massive structural damage to the building it did hit, which was lower and the crane moving faster than it would have been hitting a taller structure, so there's that.
ANY structure and it's fire protection systems, both passive and active, is only designed primarily to give occupants time to get themselves to safety in a fire. Same goes for PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo buildings. Things are designed for a certain number of hours of fire resistance, 1,2 and 3 hours being the most common. Steel can lose strength in a fire and collapse. Concrete, as seen on the parking deck of this building, when exposed to fire, will begin to spall and expose rebar and lose strength and may collapse. Sprinklers only have a certain amount of water flow available to them. Pop more than say 10-15 heads on an upper floor of a building and you're done as far as water pressure in the rest of the building until the fire department gets there and can pump more into the connections outside. The building code is all about getting people out.
And yes, it's the 2006 IBC that raised the allowable height. And there was an even bigger fire in LA a couple years ago in almost this exact same circumstance, except it wasn't quite as close to other occupied buildings.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is some discussion in Raleigh or Durham to modify things with local ordinances, which cities and states are always free to do to go above and beyond state and national codes. Or for the state building code council to look into like straw around multi family and the revisions to soffits or the reflected sun on low-e windows. Then again, I also won't be surprised if nothing is changed. Sometimes things happen and reasonable measures can't stop it.
The amount of wind was inconsequential compared to what it was earlier in the week. I remember looking at the weather at the moment and it was reported at 3MPH on the web and my iphone said there was no wind. That's about as calm as it could be. Had it been 10, 12, 15MPH or more, it could have been horrendous. Keep in mind that a fire like that creates its own mini weather system and "draft".
I am fully aware that rated assemblies are about saving lives. Nonetheless, most people WILL grab some things if they have the chance. I'd do the same but I certainly wouldn't waste a lot of time doing it.
Thanks for the clarification on when stick built was raised from 4 floors to 5. That's good to know.
Yes, fire can damage steel and concrete as we have seen but the fact remains that there would not have been that much "fuel" to keep the fire raging for as long if the framing of the entire building wasn't wood. light a fire on scrap wood in an unfinished concrete structure and see how long it burns. There probably wouldn't be enough built up heat to damage concrete and topple a crane in the first place if the fire didn't have that much fuel. It simply wouldn't burn as much or for as long. It's just a simple fact.
Builders can always exceed minimum code. The hotels in North Hills were not built as firetraps probably because the hotel chains would never accept such junk in their name. How would it look in the Hotel world if a famous chain property suffered severe loss of life in a tinderbox fire.
Well the hotels come under a completely different part of the building code because they are taller than the 1/5 stories allowed for these apartment buildings and because they are more dense and filled with transient occupants who would not be deemed to be familiar with the building and therefore not as quick to be able to evacuate in a fire. But why am I bothering with technical knowledge and facts when it's easier for you to just say Saturn cars good. Transplants bad. Developers evil. Arrggh!
Once they got the crane off it was clear there was considerable/a bunch/a whole lotta (choose your adjective) damage done to the roof. From my seat, much of the hurt was because the crane landed on the HVAC units on the roof and crunched them into the building. I think I've mentioned, I understand the building is a internet co-location/switch/distribution center. A box filled with other boxes that need a lot of cooling. I want to say there are a least a half-dozen or more automobile-size HVAC units on top of a structure that's not much bigger than a couple of 7-11's. In some ways it is just a refrigerated bunker.
Ah, I can see that being an issue. I've seen colo centers like that actually have a structure within a structure as well. There is or at least used to be one at 14001 Weston parkway. Did a bunch of work in a new building there and Sprint came in (might have been Nextel at the time) and built a switch center in the same building where they literally built another building inside this one, roof and all. But, lose cooling and it's all for naught.
Hers a picture I had seen of the crane from Mike Legeros who is a historian for the fire department, where the crane itself got bent on the edge of the building, but it didn't show the roof. Lots of other good shots too. Legeros Fire Photos - 2017-03-18-16-46-201
Looks like another one under construction. A complex under construction in Columbia, MO caught fire a few years ago. I wonder why these complexes under construction keep catching fire?
I haven't read all 14 pages so not sure if this was said already, or if this is the same place I think I heard this about, but wasn't there a local construction effort for a place that had a wood core as its USP?
So, ATF agents served a warrant on an apartment in connection with this fire. Sources: ATF agents searching Raleigh apartment in connection with downtown Raleigh fire | abc11.com Who knows if it will amount to anything, but reading the headline, I figured maybe it was one nearby and some evidence might have fallen into it (and that makes me wonder, do they have to get warrants to look in all those now vacant apartments and condos in the Link and Quorum buildings?) Then I realized it wasn't downtown and had to search to see if it was off Capital Boulevard, but it is in the triangle between Falls of the Neuse, Old wake forest and Millbrook.
And, Repatriot, I don't really understand what you're asking.
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