W. Chapel Hill St. deck: Mum's the word?

Eyebrows doubtlessly went up a few inches across folks' breakfast tables this morning at the announcement in the Herald-Sun and N&O of cracks found in the West Chapel Hill St. parking deck downtown, right across the street from City Hall.

City Manager Patrick Baker noted according to press accounts that his very first reaction was one of wanting to make sure he didn't have a Minneapolis full-scale collapse on his hands. No, the engineers said, that wasn't the situation at all.  Apparently, all there would have been to worry about would have been, oh, a "localized floor collapse."

Much better, then. Only a few squished cars and, if we're really unlucky, squished people.

Exaggeration? Perhaps, but this one strikes a bit close to home for me. I actually parked on the 6th floor of that garage for Monday night's Council meeting, mostly so that I could get a good night view of Durham's downtown. Interestingly, the topmost floors of the garage were the ones that had practically all the cars -- they were packed with Durham city and county-owned vehicles, making the top floors look like a Ford dealership parking lot. A seeming contrast with the City staff's memo to Council on the emergency repairs:

"Precautions have been taken on an interim basis to limit the structural loading on the parking deck–signs have been posted to limit the loads on the upper levels and the Management Company has been directed to not allow the deck to be used to capacity. These precautionary measures do not relieve the problem. Prior to commencing repairs, the subcontractor will temporarily shore the deck from top to bottom."

Note that I'm no expert on parking deck engineering, so there could well be a logical explanation for this one. (A portion of the top-most level of the deck is fenced off and limited only to municipal vehicles; this could be one approach to restricting the volume of vehicular parking allowed up there, though the fence installation looked more permanent than temporary to my untrained eyes. If anyone from the City is reading, I'm all ears on this one.)

Update 11/26: So I went up to the deck on Sunday to check out what vehicles are parked up there. Most of them were small trucks and vans, like Chevy S-10s, Ford Rangers, and Ford Escapes, along with some small econoboxes. Interestingly, the City press release on the matter notes that "compact pickup trucks/SUVs" are allowed in the deck, and explicitly cites three such vehicles: S-10s, Rangers, and Escapes. Wow, will wonders never cease.

Perhaps more eyebrow-raising is something that didn't appear in today's newspaper coverage that I could find -- namely, the fact that the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) on the deck project, according to the City staff's own timeline of events, encouraged the City in October to close the facility immediately:

"In a letter from Balfour Beatty Letter dated October 11, 2007 (received October 23, 2007) recommends that the City close the parking deck until all structural deficiencies have been corrected. Balfour Beatty further stated, due to unknown conditions they would not assume any responsibility for design, assessment, repair methods or damage caused by various loads imposed by the construction activity required to perform the repairs."

Instead of closure, Balfour Beatty, the assessing engineering firm, and Durham's General Services division held a conference call the next day and came up with a 45-day 'crash' project timeline for implementing a carbon-fiber emergency fix.

One has to wonder, was the City Council or the mayor aware of the problem before this time, or of Balfour Beatty's suggestion that the deck be closed immediately? Or was this strictly known to City staffers? The City's timeline suggests that General Services would request this item to become a priority-issue before Council as of Nov. 13; was this widely known to elected officials before that date?

. . .

Frankly, there are far more outstanding questions right now than can be answered here, and I'm sure local media will have further coverage of this in the coming days.

For now, let's run with the assumption that, based on Baker's assertions in front of Council on Tuesday, that there was no risk in his choice to leave the parking deck open. But you've got to ask, what harm would have come from, you know, letting the public know about the problem right away?

This has been a consistent criticism of Baker's administration of the City -- last-minute disclosures or unnecessarily restrictive disclosures. It's a problem of perception as much as reality, perhaps -- but if you've got citizens always wondering what the next shoe to drop will be with local government, better to bias towards fuller than lesser disclosure.

Ultimately, the City's decision to waive normal contracting rules and to get repairs fast-tracked is the kind of proactive response you want to see Durham's government take. And as the 11-page report on the Council agenda yesterday demonstrates, it's not as though the deck's been completely neglected, even if Durham is catching up after decades of falling behind on preventative maintenance. The deck was inspected by Kimley-Horn back in 2002 and found to not have structural deficiencies; a 2007 inspection preparing for the 2005 bond-issue funded renovations found what appear to be new cracks.

Explained that way, I suspect that most citizens would have applauded City leaders for stepping forward and saying, "Look, we have a problem with the deck, but here's what we're doing to fix it and keep you safe." I doubt anyone would have criticized the administration for a quick disclosure -- I don't think it could have even made good election-year fodder. After all, Fixing the Broken Stuff is just good old-fashioned responsible, responsive government.

Instead, the situation becomes public in a way that, for better or worse, casts aspersions on Baker's administration and leads the average newspaper reader to instinctually shake their head and sigh.

There are enough things that will happen every day in the life of a city that local governments can't control. Communicating known issues is something they can. And starting to do that more consistently would go a long way towards restoring public faith in the appointed officials and City staff.

Comments

[Will Elliott]

Kevin, thank you for posting this - after reading about it this morning I was hoping you'd take note so I could make a comment! :)

I completely agree with your comments and would like to add that I hope the City takes a very close look at Baker's contract when those terms are up for renewal. If this was one thing, ok, no problem. But we past the "one thing" a while back, lead in the water, fires in the landfills and I'm sure there are others.

This is another example of the lack of leadership that we need from our City, in particular our Mayor. I sure as heck wasn't going to vote for Stith but had there been a viable alternative to Bell I would have honestly considered it - even if they were a Republican (I just turned over in my own future grave.)

Thanks and congrats on your one year! This blog has all ready had a significant impact on Durham and I'm proud to have discovered it back in May.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Will

[Patrick Baker]

The discussion on this deck is interesting. I make decisions based on the information that is provided to me. While some of the information I use in my decision making includes written reports, most of my decisions are based on face to face conversations with individuals in which I ask specific, direct questions, the answers to which guide my decision making process. The Chapel Hill Street Deck along with the Centre Deck and Corcoran Street deck have been the subject of much discussion relative to their structural maintenance for 4-5 years. Each deck is scheduled to receive millions of dollars in structural repairs from the 2005 Bond funds. The repairs which have been publically discussed at length are not simple face lifts or exterior painting projects but are serious and significant structural reparis to very old and long neglected parking facilities. Early this year, I commissioned an engineering study to assess the current status of the decks in preparation of commencing with the renovations. I was particularly struck by the report on the Chapel Hill Street deck I received on August 24 due to the fact that while the words in the report certainly painted a potentially ominous picture if we did not adopt and implement their recommendations expeditiously, the engineers did not advise (and as of yesterday morning's teleconference have not advised) closure of the deck or the presence of an immediate threat of structural failure. Furthermore, the steps recommended to address their concerns were relatively simple and straight forward. I directed all relevant parties to immediately implement the engineers recommendations which included posting notice and enforcement of the weight restriction and the design of an engineering repair which was approved by the Council Tuesday. The agenda item presented to the Council Tuesday included the history of the administration's efforts to proactively address the issues related to the Chapel Hill Street deck so they would understand the work we had already done to address this matter and why we were asking them to vote on the item immediately rather that waiting for their December 3 Council meeting. In short, I took the engineers report very seriously and followed their recommendations to the letter. Had I been advised or thought for a moment that there was an immediate threat to the safety and well being of the patrons of that deck (of which, my family and I have been on occasion since August 24) I would have closed the deck and advised the public of the same. Nevertheless, at my direction, the administration has developed a communications plan to close the deck and disburse the monthly patrons to other parking lot in the area should conditions warrant such a directive.

[Barry]

patrick - shouldn't you be enjoying the remnants of your day off?

[Bull City Rising]

Patrick -- Thanks for taking the time to share your perspective. I'll also be posting the City's press release on the issue as a separate item. (And I'd agree with Barry -- hope you're managing to get through Thanksgiving without doing too much work.)

I understand the decision not to close the deck; my main concern is, it would have been most useful to see the information about the need for emergency deck repairs announced to the public sooner. For instance: in the evenings when the deck is wide open and there's no parking attendants there, visitors might have missed the sign restricting vehicles over 4,000 lbs. from the deck. (I didn't see the signs myself pulling in on Monday, though that's certainly likely my own fault.)

I don't imagine an outcry over the deck if the matter had been quickly announced to the general public. Would there be those people who always gripe about "another mistake in Durham?" Yes -- but I think that doesn't give Durham's public enough credit. The fact is, the City _did_ the right thing in getting Kimley-Horn to examine the decks, and again to get the engineering firm planning the upgrades to take another look in '07. From the timeline, the City staff certainly did seem to expedite and pay enough attention to the matter.

I mean, regular updates are given on City bond issues via the CIP web site -- for the Chapel Hill St. garage, the October update states "[t]he Draft Basis of Design Report was delivered to staff in July. Some repair work will be accomplished immediately, while the remainder of the project scope is further defined to meet budget." -- but it doesn't reference the reason why some of the work will be undertaken right away.

Durham and its government get a very much undeserved bad rap on lots of things, and I'm one of the first to defend the city when that happens. But when the City doesn't communicate things like this proactively to the public, in my opinion, it undermines itself.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts.

[Will Elliott]

So today the top part of a parking deck in Charlotte collapsed killing 1 person. But hey, that couldn't happen in Durham, right?

Woman Dies After Parking Deck Collapse At SouthPark Mall

POSTED: 12:31 pm EST December 6, 2007
UPDATED: 4:32 pm EST December 6, 2007

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- One person died shortly after a section of a parking deck collapsed at SouthPark Mall.
A Hyundai sedan jumped a curb and hit the wall off a curve on the top level of the deck between Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, causing the deck to partially collapse around 12:18 p.m., said Capt. Rob Brisley of the Charlotte Fire Department. The car fell into the opening and evidence of the severity of the impact – a broken planter and scattered flowers and dirt – spread across the cracked concrete.
Ron Hodnett, who had just gotten to the mall to Christmas shop with his wife, saw the whole thing happen. He said he saw the woman trying to grip her chest in pain, seconds before she crashed.
"I'm not sure if she had a heart attack or what, then she just hit the accelerator," he said.
Hodnett ran to help as his wife called 911, but he said the deck began to collapse even more.
“I feel sad. I thought maybe I could do something else for the lady,” he said.
Eric Morrison, spokesman for MEDIC, said the woman who had been in the car died at the scene, but it’s unclear if she died from injuries sustained during the collapse or from natural causes. Her name has not been released.
Three ambulances responded to the scene, as well as the city’s mass casualty unit. Firefighters searched the debris under the fallen portion of the deck but did not find anyone. Capt. Rob Brisley of the Charlotte Fire Department said two vehicles underneath were destroyed.
“We had additional firefighters that very carefully searched some of the damaged vehicles. We searched the whole parking deck to make sure everybody's accounted for," he said.
The collapse was limited to a small section of the parking deck, but the entire deck was closed for the day. Late Thursday afternoon, shoppers who were already parked there when the collapse happened were let back into the deck a few at a time to retrieve their cars. Engineers spent several hours checking the stability of the structure before anyone was allowed to enter.
Kathryn Cole, 20, was among several shoppers who had parked in the deck and was frustrated that authorities didn't immediately let people back into the nearly full structure to retrieve their cars. "I'm concerned how I'm going to get home," said Cole, a student at Davidson College, about 30 miles from the mall.
"Being without your vehicle is unfortunate, but we want you to get it safely," Brisley said.
Stacy Watson said she was relieved when she saw the damage.
“Well I'm glad it didn't collapse down. When I heard there was a garage collapse, I thought it was just going to be a big pile of cars,” she said.
County Spokesman Alex Burnett said the structure never failed a building inspection during its construction in 2003 or since. In fact, all indications are that the collapse was caused completely by the crash – the impact of the car slamming into the wall. Chopper 9 spotted several rectangular holes in the wall, which could have been where a support beam was attached to that wall – a support beam that held up that top level of the parking deck until the car hit it.
“The car hit the wall, which is incorporated into the support structure of the deck, and then that caused that one concrete slab to fall down,” Burnette said.
The same inspector who checked the deck as it was under construction came out Thursday afternoon. He told county officials he’s confident there are no other problems with the deck and the damage is isolated to that one slab. The debris will have to be cleared out, but the rest of the deck is safe and can be reopened.
A portion of Fairview Road was closed for a few hours so emergency crews could handle the scene, but the road was reopened well before the evening rush hour. The mall has remained open.