Wood Casings, Not Beams Cause of Ceiling Collapse

Published 2-1-09
http://www.doaneline.com/wood-casings-not-beams-cause-of-ceiling-collapse-1.1321015

Wooden casings fell from the Chab Weyers Art and Education building Wednesday around 1:30 p.m. but did not injure anyone according to an e-mail sent out by the marketing communications department.

Julie Schmidt, vice president for financial affairs, said the heavy wooden casings, which surrounded the electric shades, fell but did not effect any of the support beams.

“The casings were not attached so that they properly supported the shades,” Schmidt said. “Eventually, the weight was too much, and they [the casings] collapsed. You hope something like this never happens. I’m just so happy no one was hurt.”

Even though the casings fell, the building itself is still solid, Schmidt said. A structural engineer was on the scene soon after the incident occurred, and reported that the structure was sound.

Schmidt compared the incident to a picture frame falling off a wall.

“Even if the frame fell, you wouldn’t worry about the wall collapsing, or the ceiling for that matter,” Schmidt said. “At the time, there was no danger of anything else falling.”

After the incident occurred, the rest of the building was checked out to make sure the other casings were secure.

“There are similar casings on the third floor of the art and education building,” Schmidt said. “One of them is not properly supported, and so it’s been blocked off until it can be replaced.”

Russ Hewitt, director of campus safety, said Doane was working to secure students’ safety.

“What they've done is to just take precautions,” Hewitt said. “They closed off the West area so no students would walk through it and get hurt, and at the time, they wanted to make sure nothing else could fall.”

The contractor used for the construction of the Art and Education building, Kingery Construction, has taken full responsibility for the incident and will be paying for the repairs.

“It certainly gives us pause as to whether we will use them again,” Schmidt said. “But I’m sure it was human error. I don’t think they would intentionally put anyone in danger. Thankfully, the only fatality was a chair or a lamp.”