A Place of Sense

On January 12, a 7.0 seismic event centered close to Haiti’s capital, Port Au Prince, caused massive devastation. The collapsed structures and untreated injuries may cause up to 200,000 deaths.

The past few days have been a nightmare for people on the ground. The EQ knocked out much of the country’s fragile infrastructure. Haiti was a nation that was already in need of major assistance, having experienced 4 full-scale hurricanes last year and decades of political instability. A 7.0 EQ is absolutely a major event, and coming so close on the heels of last years problems is just horrible.

To put it in perspective, California’s Northridge EQ in 1994 was one of the USA’s worst disasters causing $20B worth of damage and it only registered a 6.7 magnitude. Haiti’s EQ caused strong lateral movements, and judging from the USGS map the accelerations were almost as strong as gravity. This is the structural equivalent of taking a building and turning it on its side, again and again.

Very few buildings can survive this type of movement undamaged. Haiti was even worse off because of their building materials. Many of the buildings were built from unreinforced, hand-mixed concrete blends. The images on TV show the results well enough, the TV crews probably don’t even need to look very hard to find examples.

As a structural engineer, it is always difficult to see the problems caused by improper construction and to know that many of the problems could have been avoided. Of course once an earthquake hits, engineers are powerless.

Using a list of simple rules engineers can easily design buildings that, for the most part, will preserve life safety. Designers of critical structures such as police buildings, hospitals, and bridges know in advance that they must make sure the structure will be operational in even the worst of events. The hospitals, bridges, and government buildings in Haiti appear to be worse off than other buildings, even.

So why do events like this happen? Engineers understand earthquakes, but that is only one step in the chain of safe construction. Simply stated, it is a political failure. Building codes are rolled back by politicians, with the excuse that they are too expensive. Contractors pay bribes to inspectors to pass suspect materials and shoddy workmanship. Engineers are asked to turn a blind eye in the name of patriotism. The problem with this “build quickly” theory is that the buildings remain and the legacy of poor construction becomes a ticking time bomb.

I am not trying to lay this problem at the feet of Haitians. I doubt many of them knew they were sitting on a fault line. They probably didn’t understand that reinforcing is required in columns for earthquake resistance. The engineering community needs to make a greater effort to encourage seismic resistant buildings in developing nations.

The engineer’s sole weapon against natural disasters is good design. If engineers aren’t proactive in the political realm or if engineers cede their responsibilities, then they will fail in their duty to protect the public welfare.

Anyone interesting in helping the efforts in Haiti should donate to the American Red Cross disaster relief foundation. Engineers wanting to donate specific skills should go to the ASCE Disaster Assistance page.

This past November 12 was the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Texas A&M University’s annual bonfire. A few weeks before their rivalry game with University of Texas, the large stack of logs fell apart while student workers were constructing it. The tragedy claimed the lives of 12 students and injured 27 others.

I grew up in College Station, TX, home of TAMU. I once lived very close to the site, and as a kid I would climb on top of my roof to watch the bonfire. That was a long time ago, of course.

At the time of the collapse, November 1999, I was a sophomore attending university in Pennsylvania. I first heard of the collapse when my advisor pulled me into his office and began asking questions about what happened. I assumed it was nothing more than a shifting of the foundation, as had happened before, requiring a rebuild. In fact, it was a true disaster that would test the very foundations of tradition in my hometown.

The event was a surreal experience for me, as I’m sure it was for many in my hometown. I remember seeing friends from high school being interviewed on television, and wondering how the town I viewed as the safest place in the world could ever be the site of such tragedy.

I was never involved in the bonfire, and I never knew much about its construction. As I learned more about it over the next few years, I was amazed at the recklessness of the university administration. The public, especially those in my hometown, assumed that the bonfire was a safe event because it was blessed by the public officials in charge of it. We had no idea that the students would be allowed to be placed in such danger on a routine basis.

This disaster, as is typically the case, was not a failure of engineering knowledge but a failure of organizational ineptitude. The administration had consistently turned a blind-eye to the bonfire construction process. It was a significant structure that should have been designed, verified, built according to law, and inspected on a regular schedule.

Instead, it was merely sketched out in advance, put up and pounded together with little respect for engineering principles, and tied together with ineffective materials by students who spent a whole semester skipping classes, drinking alcohol, and engaging in institutionalized hazing. TAMU’s administration (and many local politicians) allowed this to go on because they were once part of this tradition, and felt the bonfire tradition was something too important to interfere with.

The tragedy was not that the bonfire fell (that was inevitable – it was going to happen at some point), it was that the TAMU administration did so little to protect their student body from an engineering disaster. I’m no fan of in loco parentis in modern colleges, but this was absolute negligence.

The University erected a permanent memorial at the site of the collapse. TAMU did undertake a full investigation and thus far have refused to continue the practice. I’m sure it is not easy for them to consistently deny the requests of alumni who want to start the tradition back up, but I do know that the memorial is clearly visible from the administration building and they need only look out their window to remember why it was cancelled.

I don’t think any activity that has proven to be so dangerous should be reinstated. There is nothing that will ever convince me that student’s lives should be put at risk. In the end, this disaster probably showed a lot of colleges and universities around the world that they need to take a closer look at their sanctioned events.

There are many ways in which students can show honor to past traditions, engage in creative challenges, and help foster a sense of community. But any activities resembling the Aggie Bonfire, a large structure capable of causing great harm, must be carefully managed by those in responsible charge.