On Monday night, a large metal sheet fell from the roof of AT&T Stadium to the playing field. Via ESPN.com, City of Arlington communications coordinator Susan Schrock has since said that the venue is fine.
“Our building inspector and our deputy fire marshal did talk to AT&T Stadium crews today and determined that there weren’t any structural issues with the venue or the roof,” Schrock said. “And that this was in fact just a piece of metal that was a covering lid to one of these cable trays that was blown off by a gust of wind.”
It nevertheless speaks to a design flaw that previously was unknown. Wind gusts happen, and engineers and architects are supposed to take that into account when designing the roof, including the covering lid to the cable tray.
So what else don’t they know about? It’s easy to say there are no structural issues as to the piece that fell. There might be other design flaws that haven’t become obvious yet because there hasn’t been a gust of wind, or an equivalent trigger, to expose it.
Bottom line? Arlington should demand something more than an assurance that the issue with the falling metal on Monday night has been identified and rectified. It should mandate a full review of the building to ensure that no other problems are lurking.
If they don’t — and if there’s a future incident that gets someone injured or worse — the fact that a top-to-bottom review wasn’t done after Monday’s incident will become evidence of failure to ensure that the building is safe for employees and customers to enter.
Beyond being a basic question of liability, it’s also a fundamental matter of right and wrong. The powers-that-be are on notice that there could be unknown issues at the stadium. If they don’t fix it, shame on them.
