This could spoil your day if you were the engineer....

[Scott Douglas]

Are those beams fabricated in place from pieces?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by David

It looks like the blocking or beam to beam ties were not installed which allowed the beams to fall over and buckle. I can understand if one beam collapsed but three beams collapsing leads me to believe they were not installed properly where each beam would be blocked before the next beam was installed. So maybe not the engineer's fault but rather the construction crew's fault.

These were my thoughts, too. It's not compressive because the near ends of the beams are free. I think the vertical supporting beams just fell over from lack of lateral support. David, let's share the consulting fee and call this done.

[john70t]

Wind did not cause this.
The lateral "I" in "I-beams" look like they are extremely undersized for the structure. To say the least....

There were other factors involved.