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I’m not sure if this made national news, but here in L.A. we’ve been seeing a story about the collapse of a 24 unit two story apartment building in the Echo Park district. From the TV pictures, it appears that one corner of the ground floor collapsed, and the long wall wracked enough that all of the stucco sheared off from the framing and fell vertically in large sheets. Figuring six units per side on two floors, that’s probably about 100 – 150 feet. The interior wood lath (built in 1924) appears to have stayed in place on that wall, but from the TV I can’t tell about the plaster. They did send a camera into the interior hallway, no fallen plaster there. Explosion has been ruled out as a cause. Does anybody have any info on this collapse?
— J.S.
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John, what we heard was the building had been sited by building inspectors recently. I believe it was for foundation problems. Recent was not defined, nor was the nature of the problem. It was an AP story we heard on the radio.
Dave
*Is this what you are talking about? (the last entry is the most recent):http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20001209/t000117806.htmlhttp://www.latimes.com/news/state/20001211/t000118432.htmlhttp://www.latimes.com/editions/ventura/vcnews/20001212/t000118820.html
*Yes, thanks, Casey. That's the one. It's interesting that they can't figure out who actually owns the dump. There's an apartment building behind my house like that.-- J.S.
*Every time I am in southern California I'm amazed at what passes for building quality. I recently spent a night at hotel in Pasadena. I couldn't get to sleep after a quick survey of the room. I guess if you know how things should be built you can get nervous in those shoddy multi-story buildings near fault zones.I don't mean to insult any craftsmen or honourable developers out there, but, California has to have some of the worst builders I have seen in the first world. Talk about tons of speculative garbage!
*I know what you mean, Rein. I was climbing up the living room floor in a new townhouse a few weeks back, and wondering how it could have settled that far without tearing up the drywall. (It would be impolite to pull out a level and tape at a friend's place to determine the actual slope of the floor, but my guess is about 1/4" per foot). The answer is that it hasn't settled at all. It was built way off level. How does that kind of stuff get past inspection?-- J.S.
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I'm not sure if this made national news, but here in L.A. we've been seeing a story about the collapse of a 24 unit two story apartment building in the Echo Park district. From the TV pictures, it appears that one corner of the ground floor collapsed, and the long wall wracked enough that all of the stucco sheared off from the framing and fell vertically in large sheets. Figuring six units per side on two floors, that's probably about 100 - 150 feet. The interior wood lath (built in 1924) appears to have stayed in place on that wall, but from the TV I can't tell about the plaster. They did send a camera into the interior hallway, no fallen plaster there. Explosion has been ruled out as a cause. Does anybody have any info on this collapse?
-- J.S.