more on the San Antonio retaining wall collapse

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http://www.woai.com/news/local/story/Wall-blamed-for-landslide-will-have-to-be/L_uUDxsddEeNZ2icsD_VVg.cspx?rss=68

There's good news and bad news.

The good news is that the City is requiring the wall to be replaced in its ENTIRETY.

The bad news is:
“In the report Sanchez says, "There are multiple reasons why the wall may have failed. It may have been one or a combination of the following reasons:
- Design failure in that the wall was never properly designed in the first place.
- Construction failure in that the wall was not built in accordance with the engineered plans and specifications “

This shows just how poor a job that the City is doing. They don’t know if the wall was designed “in the first place” (and engineering plans for it exist), BUT IF THEY DID, then the City doesn’t know if the wall was built according to the engineering plans (that the City doesn’t know exist or not). HUH?!?

A 30 ft. high retaining wall can have pressures at the base in the order of one TON PER SQUARE FT. Needless to say, with pressures like that the City needs to be monitoring retaining wall design and construction.

BTW, the retaining wall doesn’t know if its in a commercial area or a residential area. If it's designed or constructed inadequately, then it’s going to fail, regardless if it falls on houses or businesses.
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