re: Part of the new Hard Rock Hotel collapses (NOLA) 3 dead, Cranes Down-ish

Guess I'm not following what you're getting at. Yeah the columns have spices, but that doesn't means they're weak, and that elevator shaft steel is braced up like a MF'r... Sized properly, don't know, but structurally, it looks OK to me. Problem IMO is, those deck panels with no intermediate steel, were underdesigned not only for the gravity loads but lateral loads as well. The deck is supposed to create a diaphragm that transfers lateral loads from the unbraced column lines to the braced elevator shafts, which I doubt a panel size that big could do (it would possibly buckle the deck panel).