The latest reports are saying that the fears were overblown and that the building was never in danger of collapse.
I'm not buying that.
No longer in danger of imminent collapse? Perhaps, but that can only be determined with some hindsight. Seeing those vertical beams buckled clean through would have sent any sane man highballing for the exits. Ask the original constructors of the Quebec Bridge about buckled beams. Also, those beams are now useless. They have been loaded well past their yield strength. In order for that steel to continue being steel, it needs to be melted down and re-cast.
Many are trying to compare this with the Citicorp Center fiasco. Those beams didn't buckle.
Is that building now totally unoccupiable? Yup. The nature of static indeterminance means that there is quite a bit of redundancy inside the structure, which kept it upright. But now all of that has to be re-calculated. If you say it's still salvagebale, it may be structually. But who's going to insure this junk heap?
Some years ago, I read an interview with Doug Loizeaux. His family's company, Controlled Demolition Inc., has a list of kills including the Seattle Kingdome, Hudson's in Detroit, and
most of the previous generation of hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. In this interview, he said something to the effect of the only thing CDI hasn't demolished is a block-sized skyscraper in New York. Methinks he's going to get his chance soon.
