Berkeley balcony appears to have been ‘extensively rotted’, say investigators

Building inspectors in Berkeley, California found that parts of the balcony that collapsed last week killing six Irish students and injuring seven more appeared to have been "severely dry rotted".

An internal memo sent among City of Berkeley officials said that two inspectors were on the scene of the accident at the Library Gardens student complex within two hours and they continued to inspect the destroyed balcony and building over the following days.

The city’s supervising building inspector and a Berkeley police photographer were hoisted in a platform lift to observe closely and photograph the conditions of the collapsed balcony at apartment 405.

"From this location, the supervising building inspector observed that the joist ends protruding from the exterior wall appeared to be extensively rotted at the failure points," Alex Roshal, manager of the city's building and safety division told the director of the city's planning and development department Eric Angstadt in a memo released by the City of Berkeley.

Berkeley’s building and safety division staff concluded in their “staff recommendation report” that the “deck joist ends protruding from the exterior wall at Unit 405 appear to be severely dry rotted.”

Five Dublin students – Eoghan Culligan, Lorcán Miller, Niccolai Schuster, Eimear Walsh and Olivia Burke and Ms Burke’s Irish-American cousin Ashley Donohoe, from Rohnert Park, California – were killed when the balcony they were standing on collapsed during an early-morning birthday party on Tuesday, June 16th.

Seven other students were injured in the accident that shocked the Irish public and led to a national outpouring of grief and support.

The joint funeral of Ms Burke and Ms Donohoe were held in California on Saturday and the funerals of Mr Culligan and Ms Walsh took place in Dublin on Tuesday after their remains arrived back in Ireland from California on Sunday morning.

The funeral of Mr Schuster will take place in Rathgar on Wednesday and Mr Miller’s in Shankill on Thursday.

The report of the Berkeley building inspectors also found issues with the third-floor balcony beneath. The collapsed fourth-floor balcony fell onto that balcony, hinging 90 degree downward and resting against the building supported by the lower Unit 305 balcony guardrail.

The third-floor balcony was also found to have structural problems. Inspectors observed “significant rot and decay to the outer support joist that seemed to decrease on the supporting joists towards the centre of the balcony,” the city’s inspectors said.

Workers cut exploratory holes in the underside of that balcony and found that the frame supporting that balcony “appeared to be dry-rotted at the exposed locations potentially presenting a danger of structural failure.”

That balcony was removed last week by workers.

Two other balconies elsewhere on the building, on the second floor, were inspected but they had “no signs of distress or water damage”.

The city officials said in the memo that while inspecting the balconies they remained in contact with the apartment block’s property manager Greystar, owner Blackrock, the company that performed the removal of the third-floor balcony beneath the collapsed balcony and an independent structural engineer hired by the building’s owners.

In a statement releasing the internal memo, the city of Berkeley said that based on the observations of the inspectors, officials will recommend that the city council adopt new and modified regulations to enhance the safety of all current and future buildings in Berkeley.

“The changes would make new balconies and other sealed areas exposed to weather subject to stricter requirements on materials, inspection, and ventilation,” a spokesman for the city said.

“In addition, the proposed regulations would institute regular maintenance inspections for all such spaces for future buildings as well as those units already built.”

New inspection regulations would apply to existing buildings and would require inspections of all such spaces within six months of the passage of the proposed ordinances, the Berkeley city statement said.

Thereafter, units would be required to have maintenance inspections by qualified inspectors once every five years.

The inspectors found that balconies on residential apartments were required to be designed to take a “live load of 60 pounds per square foot minimum,” though the design “dead load” varies for each application depending on the construction materials used.

The approved plans for the Library Gardens complex had a determination of a 45 pounds per square foot dead load, the inspectors found, and that “the load analysis conservatively used the least dimension of the framing member (the supporting beams) at the cantilever and back span.”

Among the recommendations made by inspectors to building regulations, to be adopted on an “emergency basis,” was that balconies exposed to weather and sealed underneath should be constructed with naturally durable or preservative-treated wood or corrosion-resisted, galvanised steel or similar approved materials.