] [Thread] [Date] [Author]

[Bill Polhemus <bill(--nospam--at)polhemus.cc>]

Watching TV today, waiting for Hurricane Ike to pay us a visit here in 
the Houston-Galveston area, the reporters were all agog over a "wall 
failure" at the Hilton Hotel in Galveston. The hotel is currently the 
headquarters for all those folks you see on the various news channels, 
wearing windbreakers and giving you shots with the waves breaking over 
the seawall, etc.

"Does this mean the structure will collapse? Are all these reporters 
D-O-O-O-O-O-O-MED!?!?!?" was the tenor of the story.

Then the camera pulls back to show the gaping hole in the hotel - and 
you realize it's just a bit of EIFS cladding that came loose. I'm sure 
the hotel will lose a LOT of it in the coming storm, but the interior 
structure looks to be a very solid reinforced concrete frame.

COMING UP NEXT (I'm sure): They'll interview some architect who 
"designed the structure" for his opinion on the "catastrophe."

The Mainstream Media: The gift that keeps on giving.

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