Webinar: The Picciano Parking Garage Collapse: What Really Happened

Date: 11/17/2022

Time: 12:00 PM - 1:10 PM

Location: Zoom Webinar

On a sunny and otherwise predictable summer day in 2015, the upper deck of the UHS Wilson Hospital’s Picciano North Parking Garage in Johnson City, NY collapsed suddenly onto the lower deck. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured, but more than 50 vehicles parked in the garage were destroyed. Review of the collapse debris provided insight into the hidden fragility of the garage structure, which had been in service for over 40 years. The lack of any apparent warning or signs of significant distress prior to the collapse, as well as a look into the failure mechanism of the two-way structural slab, is instructive for anyone who performs reviews of parking garages and other structures, with insights for the engineering community in general.

The presenter had overseen condition reviews of the garage in the years prior to the collapse. He was on site the day after the collapse and heavily involved for weeks after, to assist with the safe demolition of the upper portion of the garage while maintaining the stability of the lower deck and the vital computer data center which was in the basement of the garage.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about some structural failure mechanisms that do not show visual signs of distress prior to collapse.
• Understand how improper depth of reinforcement can have a significant reduction in capacity of concrete elements.
• Become familiar with the new New York State requirement that all public parking garages have a structural condition review every 3 years.
• Learn how a lack of structural design drawings should be a significant consideration for a structural condition review.

Presented By:

 James A. D’Aloisio, P.E., LEED AP  

Jim is a principal with Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt, a structural engineering, landscape architecture, and building envelope services firm in East Syracuse, New York. His 30-plus years’ experience as a consulting structural engineer has primarily involved the design of new building structures, additions, and modifications, and analyses, assessments, investigations of structures and facades, and parking garage assessment and rehabilitation. He’s presented over 400 times.