Posted on 12/12/2010 6:25:36 AM PST by raccoonradio
St. Paul, Minn. — The snowstorm that dumped more than 20 inches of snow on parts of Minnesota brought down the roof of the Metrodome on Sunday morning.
Witnesses, including the security director at the nearby Holiday Inn Metrodome, said the roof is no longer visible above the dome's concrete bowl.
"We went up to the 14th floor to look at it. It looks kind of like a big dish of sugar," the director, Chris Cowles, said.
Sunday's Vikings game against the New York Giants had already been rescheduled for Monday night.
Officials from the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission could not immediately be reached for comment. On Saturday, facilities and engineering director Steve Maki told the Star Tribune there was no structural issue occurring at the dome from the snow.
Maki told the newspaper crews had planned to go back up on the dome's roof Sunday morning to remove snow.
If the dome did collapse from Saturday's storm, it'd be the first time since the 1980s that that's happened.
TIME TO DIG OUT
The giant winter storm had moved out of Minnesota by Sunday morning, but dangerous wind chills moved in to replace it. The National Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory for a large swath of the state, including the Twin Cities and Duluth. A blizzard warning remained in effect for southeastern Minnesota.
Minnesotans, many of whom were forced to stay home Saturday because of snow-clogged streets and no public transportation, are digging out.
Snow totals reached 20 inches in some places. Shakopee received the most snow with 21.5 inches. Everywhere else in the Twin Cities area received at least 10 inches.
So it wasn't a catastrophic structural collapse but an intentional deflation of the dome. The previous times it deflated it was back up in a few days. I love how people here turn it into something like the Sampoong Department Store collapse and then try to show how smart they are by second guessing the engineers and contractors.
No, that’s not likely at all.
There is n operations manual somewhere and I would almost guarantee that is sits on a shelf, dusty and unread by the present union maintenance guys. The union maintenance supervisor is saying “well, we never did that before” thus letting precedent rather than the design parameters and him take the blame.
The roof collapsed because the internal pressure was inadequate and the pressure was inadequate because a door was open and the fans were not running or some such. It was a maintenance error, a human error
You obviously did not bother to read the article.
A NFL team fould work in L.A. but only if its a winning team. If its a crappy team, there are plenty of other things to do than to waste $$$ and a Sunday afternoon at a NFL game.
Some amazing video of the collapse from inside the Metrodome on Fox pre-game show. Don’t know if the video is available on-line
Here’s the video.
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/snow-collapses-metrodome%2C-vikings-postponed-dec-12-2010
So there isn't any damage? OK, my mistake.
There may be some damage, I don't know. My point was that it wasn't faulty construction.
I'm at a loss as to why they have an understructure capable of handling a 20" snow load. It seems that the purpose of an inflatable roof would be to decrease the amount of structure and weight required.
believe NPR? believe Minnesota NPR?
They are repeating all they know and that is that engineers were blamed for the bridge collapse there fore it is the template to blame the engineers always.
Never blame union maintenance types...... they will burn your house never blame the Rat politicos, they are why NPR exists, to protect them
An NPR person can not distinguish between his ass and a hole in the ground if there is no template in the style manual
Video of collapse:
Dang...I sure hope this doesn’t happen to Reliant Stadium next time we get 20 inches of snow.
Well I found out about it from someone on facebook who linked to Minn Public Radio. “Football? Is that the game, lovey,
where some gents kick around a round ball and if one team scores more ‘goals’ in the net in the alloted time, they
prevail?”
yup, and an hr ago on my facebook:
>>Game will be at Ford field Detroit tomorrow - OFFICIAL
I sure hope we never get 20 inches of snow.
You should stop listening to NPR if they upset you that much.
NFL.com:
>>Ticket holders for the original Giants-Vikings game will be admitted and given preferred seating along the 50-yard line. Free general-admission tickets will be available at the Ford Field box office beginning at 9 a.m. ET.
Refunds will be given to all original ticket holders
Slide show from MPLS Star-Trib:
http://www.startribune.com/galleries/111750994.html?elr=KArksUUUycaEacyU
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