I have to design decks to hold 40 pounds per square foot live. That’s been standard for years so if your deck was permitted that’s probably the number you can use. That said, I can’t tell you how many contractors don’t screw/bolt the ledger board properly to the house, or don’t flash it properly so it rots out. And some municipalities don’t require permits for decks, or didn’t in the past.
I just read on CNN that the Oakland warehouse building itself has not been officially inspected in 30 years and that most of the complaints have been about the vacant lot adjacent that was filled with debris, abandoned cars, hazardous materials but not the structure itself as they apparently have different street addresses. Now I know little about commercial real estate but wouldn’t there have been a needed inspection/title search as part of the building’s sale? I work in a high rise older office building in midtown Manhattan and we have regular fire inspection and drills and just recently had a special drill for dealing with potentially terrorist/deranged person/shooter at large.
Well one city did the inspection of a similar art warehouse which lead to the residents eviction.
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/08/fire-safety-eviction-art-colony-denver-brighton-blvd/
The comments are interesting.
I have always felt that haunted houses are a disaster waiting to happen. They are thrown together with lots of plywood and flammable material and they are intentionally difficult to find your way through.
Carnival rides and attractions in general are pretty shoddy.
I’ve always been personally on guard for places where overcrowding could lead to one of those crowd-crush situations. I tend to stay near the outside of crowds rather than get into the middle of them, although sometimes you don’t have control.
One thing I haven’t been able to process about the fire is that it seems that the fire started in the back of the building, but the entrance was in the front. You’d think there would have been time to exit for many people. Apparently there was not, and possibly its because people were trapped on the upper balcony? level with no easy way down. Obviously there was some circumstance that prevented a timely exit, but it isn’t clear to me what that was. The building doesn’t look all that big, and it doesnt seem that the exit was blocked by the fire itself. Maybe a loss of lights, and the darkness, but these days everyone has a flashlight in the pocket in the form of their cellphone.
I’m wondering if there was some kind of covering hanging under the ceiling that ignited and burned rapidly. That might explain the reports.
Years ago there was a terrible tragedy involving a haunted house at I believe Great Adventure in NJ not long after it opened. There were multiple fatalities and they were kids from a high school in Queens on a senior trip outing.
A high school friend of my daughter’s lived in that apartment; she was lucky because she was home when the fire occurred. However, she lost everything that she owned. I know that at least one of the kids in the apartment suffered serious injuries (burns).