Four recent catastrophic building collapses and a near miss are raising concerns about the state of America’s aging buildings and questions about who, if anyone, is checking their safety.
Many cities have buildings showing signs of aging and in need of repair. In New York City, where a seven-story apartment building partially collapsed in December 2023, the median building age is about 90 years, and many neighborhoods were built before 1900.
As a civil engineer, I study building failures, and I have seen how crucial structural inspections and careful maintenance are – and how often the signs of trouble are ignored in the U.S. until a problem becomes a crisis. Too often, it is up to residents to call attention to the risks.
There were two common threads prior to many of the recent building collapses: visible signs of the defects that eventually led to the building’s demise and a ...
