Things that made you Facepalm today (Political Version)

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Originally Posted by Alfster

Whopping 37 mph winds are high winds to you?

What part of what I said was false? Me. Fake news guy over here. Wall falls over. You claim fake. So are you claiming it didn't fall over?

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37 mph wind is strong. Do you know what strong wind is? Not mention how strong the gusts must have been.

As far as which part of your comment was fake news, the part where you said it fell over due shoddy work and implied it just fell over on its own.

This is an actual headline and article from CNN:

Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity

I was wonder how the Democrats and media were going to spin this virus as somehow being bad on Trump's fault and dammit if Fake News Network themselves didn't come through with flying colors.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

37 mph wind is strong. Do you know what strong wind is? Not mention how strong the gusts must have been.

As far as which part of your comment was fake news, the part where you said it fell over due shoddy work and implied it just fell over on its own.

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Design wind gust speed for California is 100 miles per hour for the least restrictive building class, with sustained wind of 45 miles per hour. The winds are reported to have been gusts up to 37mph, or about 1/3rd the required design wind speed. In other words, not a strong wind. Sounds like shoddy workmanship to me. Dumbasses out there trying to fix it in the middle of the winds further reinforces that maybe they should hire a different contractor. That sort of unnecessary risk taking is a good sign of a shoddy contractor. Now I'm curious about what contractor is dumb enough to do that on a federal project. They should expect an OSHA fine.

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Originally Posted by Archigeek

Design wind gust speed for California is 100 miles per hour for the least restrictive building class, with sustained wind of 45 miles per hour. The winds are reported to have been gusts up to 37mph, or about 1/3rd the required design wind speed. In other words, not a strong wind. Sounds like shoddy workmanship to me. Dumbasses out there trying to fix it in the middle of the winds further reinforces that maybe they should hire a different contractor. That sort of unnecessary risk taking is a good sign of a shoddy contractor. Now I'm curious about what contractor is dumb enough to do that on a federal project. They should expect an OSHA fine.

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I don't know what to tell you. 40 mph wind is strong, it can potentially knock over trees and rip siding off of houses, I'm sure it can knock over a 30 foot tall free standing wall that is anchored to concrete that hasn't had time to cure yet. Even the local weather was warning people that the wind is strong enough to cause damage when this happened. If these sections of wall had been finished then I would say yeah, that's pretty bad that 40 mph wind can knock it over.

I do agree though that trying to fix the damage while the wind was still strong was pretty stupid. Were they trying to fix it or was Mexico like get your fucking wall off our land and they were trying to remove it? I don't know.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

I don't know... a bunch of proof that this statement is correct... I don't know.

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I explained how a wall is temporarily braced and the wind speed it should be designed for by law in the state of California. Your description of a 37 mph wind as strong is irrelevant when the wall should have been designed to withstand 100 mph winds. Fortunately people who do know write the standards.

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Originally Posted by Archigeek

I explained how a wall is temporarily braced and the wind speed it should be designed for by law in the state of California. Your description of a 37 mph wind as strong is irrelevant when the wall should have been designed to withstand 100 mph winds. Fortunately people who do know write the standards.

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Granted I'm not an expert so I'll defer to your expertise here; if the wall is built on the border (judging from the pictures it looks like less than a foot from the border with Mexico, I'm just guessing it's even closer than that), and the wall fell over onto the Mexican side, wouldn't they need to brace the wall from the Mexican side and wouldn't there not be enough room for the bracing? I find it hard to believe Mexico is allowing anything built on their side of the border but I suppose anything is possible.

I also don't think the federal government has to conform to California's laws when it comes to building a security border wall. If that were the case the state of California would create some crazy ass regulations to ensure the wall could never be built in their state.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

Granted I'm not an expert so I'll defer to your expertise here; if the wall is built on the border (judging from the pictures it looks like less than a foot from the border with Mexico, I'm just guessing it's even closer than that), and the wall fell over onto the Mexican side, wouldn't they need to brace the wall from the Mexican side and wouldn't there not be enough room for the bracing? I find it hard to believe Mexico is allowing anything built on their side of the border but I suppose anything is possible.

I also don't think the federal government has to conform to California's laws when it comes to building a security border wall. If that were the case the state of California would create some crazy ass regulations to ensure the wall could never be built in their state.

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You are correct that the federal government doesn't have to comply with state regulations, but the wind design speeds come from the International Code Council, (that's the name, but it's really US code), which in turn gets them from a standards testing organization, I forget which one. Bottom line is that no engineer of record worth their salt would ignore those standards,but it's likely that someone did, which lead to shoddy design.

In answer to the bracing side question, you can brace from either side, in fact you don't design for prevailing wind direction so much as the load of the wind in general.

At the end of the day it's a screw up, and screw ups happen. The real sign of a good contractor is how quickly and correctly they fix mistakes and keep the project moving forward.

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Originally Posted by Archigeek

You are correct that the federal government doesn't have to comply with state regulations, but the wind design speeds come from the International Code Council, (that's the name, but it's really US code), which in turn gets them from a standards testing organization, I forget which one. Bottom line is that no engineer of record worth their salt would ignore those standards,but it's likely that someone did, which lead to shoddy design.

In answer to the bracing side question, you can brace from either side, in fact you don't design for prevailing wind direction so much as the load of the wind in general.

At the end of the day it's a screw up, and screw ups happen. The real sign of a good contractor is how quickly and correctly they fix mistakes and keep the project moving forward.

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Fair enough. Thanks for providing an answer on the bracing question. I was picturing giant poles or something on either side holding it up while the concrete cured.

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Originally Posted by Archigeek

The walls are braced with temporary bracing. The sequence is normally like this: foundations are poured, as are the brace attachment points. After the foundation is cured, the walls are stood up with a crane and fastened to the foundation AND to the temporary braces (you can see one in the video). With building walls, you would leave the braces in place until the rest of the structure (roof framing and any floor level wall connections) are in place. In this case, they might be pouring concrete around the walls and then backfilling. That's the only concrete that might not have been cured, but that is no excuse. The bracing is supposed to be designed by a structural engineer and certified by them. It's clear in the video that some Yahoo with a piece of equipment is desperately trying to weigh down the brace connection with a large block of concrete, a very unsafe thing to be trying to do in high winds. That wall, and the bracing, should be designed to withstand much higher winds than those indicated.

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Confirmed wind energy is bad for the environment.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

or was Mexico like get your fucking wall off our land and they were trying to remove it? I don't know.

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