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Buried Truths and the Hyatt Skywalks - The Legacy of America's Epic Structural Failure (Hardcover)
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Buried Truths and the Hyatt Skywalks - The Legacy of America's Epic Structural Failure (Hardcover)
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In 1981 the sudden collapse of two skywalks in Kansas City's Hyatt
hotel killed 114 people and injured another 200. There never was a
public trial, nor a full airing of everything that went wrong.
Richard A. Serrano shared a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the
disaster at the time; now he returns to the tragedy to learn all
that went wrong, how it could have been avoided, and what lasting
effects persist today-for engineering and the legal system, but
most importantly those who suffered. Drawing on legal depositions,
evidentiary material, and recollections from 240 survivors, first
responders, and construction officials, Buried Truths and the Hyatt
Skywalks is the story of this monumental catastrophe and what it
teaches us today. The Friday evening Tea Dance was all the rage
that summer of 1981. Each week the lobby filled with throngs of
revelers, some celebrating atop the skywalks themselves. On July
17, without warning, the steel support systems buckled and the
concrete and glass skywalks crashed onto the crowded lobby. The
devastation reverberated far beyond the ruins. Firefighters, police
officers, and paramedics suffered from deep depression, cycled
through divorce, hit the bottle, and in some instances committed
suicide. The hotel had been built using a new fast-track method
with key construction decisions often made on the fly, including
changing the skywalk design from six heavy hanger rods to twelve
thinner poles. Within a year the skywalks were splintering inside.
Even then the collapse could have been averted, but special
inspection panels to check the hanging walkways were never opened.
Though wholly avoidable, the Hyatt disaster did bring significant
changes-some good and some problematic. Tougher industry guidelines
were enforced for US construction projects. Police officers,
firefighters, and health care workers are now treated for PTSD and
other psychological trauma after working a tragic event. But the
rush to settle all the Hyatt lawsuits helped usher in a
controversial new era of nondisclosure agreements. Buried Truths
and the Hyatt Skywalks explores America's worst structural
engineering disaster. Though the world has moved on, survivors and
witnesses still vividly recall that night. This is their story.
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