Litigation on a Collapsed Slurry Wall as Viewed by a Product Design Engineer

Abstract

On Saturday, January 19, 1974, part of a slurry wall of a government office building, which was being constructed in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, collapsed. Miraculously, there were no personal injuries, only property damage, which was subsequently assessed at approximately 1.5 million dollars. Had the accident occurred 24 hours earlier, when approximately 30 men were working in the collapse sight and a dozen cars which on the average were stopped at the stoplights of the adjacent intersection, which collapsed with the slurry wall, this accident would have been a major catastrophe. I was originally retained to assist the attorney for the architect who designed the building, to gather as much physical data as possible and to document the location of collapsed portions of the wall, and to assist in identifying and cataloging material as it was being removed from the collapse site. But as I became more and more involved in my task, it became obvious that I would eventually be able to