At 7:00pm on the 17th of July, 1981, more than 1,000 people were gathered in the atrium of the
Hyatt Regency Kansas City hotel for a tea dance, when a structural failure occurred. Two "skywalks"
which crossed the lobby collapsed, crashing down onto the revelers below. The incident would cause
the greatest loss of life from a structural collapse in american history, only ever to
be superseded - twenty years later - by the destruction of New York City's World Trade Center.
The Hyatt Regency Kansas City hotel was part of the Crown Center complex - a suite of buildings
owned by Hallmark Cards consisting of both retail and residential space.
The hotel stood 45 storeys tall with more than 700 rooms available for guests,
as well as a grand ballroom and exhibition space. It was a popular venue and the tea
dances held there each weekend had swiftly become a phenomenon, drawing in ever-increasing crowds.
People came to drink, dance, meet their friends, and enjoy an evening out on the town.
By all accounts the hotel was doing well. Construction had been completed just a year before
in 1980, and already it was a familiar landmark to many residents of, and visitors to, Kansas City.
Of particular note was the lobby - an elegant, high-ceilinged space fitted out in metal,
glass and concrete. Ss well as soaring windows to admit plenty of daylight it also boasted
three walkways which spanned the length of the atrium at the second, third and fourth floors.
These walkways were left open during the tea dances and people often gathered on them to
look down at the crowd below. They afforded an excellent view of the entire lobby,
and of the live band providing the entertainment.
Survivors of the disaster which unfolded on the 17th of July, 1981, report that there was
little warning before the collapse occurred. At 7:05pm several loud popping sounds were heard.
Just seconds later the fourth floor walkway failed, collapsing straight downwards onto
the second floor walkway, which failed in turn. The combined mass of both walkways
crashed down onto the densely packed crowd occupying the ground floor of the lobby.
Many victims who were caught in the collapse were killed instantly,
but some did survive. They were left trapped in the mangled wreckage of the two walkways,
pinned in place by concrete, glass and steel, gravely injured and inaccessible to rescuers.
Worse still, the hotel's sprinkler system ruptured, flooding the ruined lobby with hundreds
of gallons of water. Having survived the collapse, several victims were now at risk of drowning.
A rescue operation began, but was almost immediately stymied.
Many of the pieces of concrete were too heavy or bulky to be
moved by the equipment the fire and rescue service had on hand.
Fire chiefs appealed to the construction community who, without hesitation, provided cranes, drills
and other heavy lifting equipment to help rescuers reach those people still trapped in the rubble.
Digging down to reach survivors was not a pleasant task. Water was everywhere, the power had failed,
and there was little light to see by, with visibility further hampered by dust and debris.
Furthermore, so densely packed was the rubble that in some cases the only way to reach survivors
was by dismembering the dead bodies which blocked access to them.
In a few cases the only way to rescue someone was to perform an on-site amputation.
In total, 114 people were killed and 216 were injured in the incident. Casualties were sent
to nearly every available hospital in the area, while the dead were moved to a makeshift morgue
in the hotel's exhibition area. The high number of casualties meant that almost everyone in the
local area knew at least one victim. The psychic impact of the collapse was huge.
An investigation was launched to find the cause,
and its focus quickly narrowed to the construction of the walkways.
Analysis of the wreckage showed that a change had been made from the original plans.
The walkways for floors two and four were directly above one another.
In the original plans they depended from the same long hanger rods... but in actual fact
these long rods have been switched out in each case with two shorter rods.
This seemingly innocuous switch had been made based on a proposal from the manufacturer of
the steel rods. Long rods would have to be threaded along their full length and would
thus be easily damaged during installation. Replacing each long rod with two shorter rods
would make things much easier to manage, they said, and so two rods were installed in each case.
It was never taken into account that this would change the forces which acted upon the walkways.
In this new configuration the beams of the fourth floor walkway, where the hangar rods
were attached, now had to bear twice the load they had originally been intended to hold.
This, combined with the number of guests crowded on the walkway during the tea
dance on the 17th of July, 1981, was what had precipitated the collapse.
Analysis of the wreckage revealed that the nuts holding the walkway in place
had pulled all the way through the box beams against which they had been secured.
While this was the main factor in the collapse, it wasn't the only issue highlighted by the
investigation. Numerous other safety violations and breaches of protocol were discovered.
During the hotel's rapid construction preliminary sketches had been used as though they were final
signed off drawings, and changes to the design had sometimes been confirmed by a quick phone call
rather than by the submission of revised plans.
The issue which caused the collapse of the walkways at the Hyatt Regency Kansas City
hotel was, according to the original designer, so
obvious that a first-year engineering student could have spotted it.
But it had gone unnoticed,
with the various companies and contractors involved in the construction of the hotel
all assuming that someone else had done the work of verifying designs and running calculations.
The disaster and the hundreds of deaths which resulted from it had been caused, in short,
by poor communication and a laissez-faire attitude during a rushed construction project.
The engineering firm Jack D Gillum and Associates
had been responsible for the original design and had approved the final drawings.
In the aftermath of the disaster they were stripped of their licence to operate
in three states as well as their membership of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
No criminal charges were pursued against the firm, but owner Jack D Gillum, who had been an
engineer of note on the project, was haunted by the disaster for the rest of his life. He spent
his remaining years lecturing and speaking about his involvement in the hope that the
story would scare young engineers out of making the same mistakes that he and his company did.
More than 300 civil suits were brought against those
involved in the construction and management of the hotel. These lawsuits yielded billions
of dollars in compensation - a large portion of which was set aside for charitable causes
to help the Kansas City community heal and move forward in the wake of the disaster.
Even when agreeing to pay out compensation everyone connected with the case
denied all legal responsibility. Numerous changes were made in the fields of civil
engineering and construction in the wake of the disaster. The collapse was international news.
In countries around the world the curriculum for engineering students was completely overhauled,
with a new emphasis on responsibility and safety. Standards were raised and trade manuals revised.
The walkway collapse remains, to this day, a sobering case study for budding engineers - one
which underlines very clearly the importance of good communication and adherence to protocol.
A memorial dedicated in 2015 now stands in Hospital Hill Park, close to the hotel which
itself has been entirely restored and refurbished. The two collapsed walkways which once crossed the
lobby have now been replaced by just one walkway supported by pillars rather than hangar rods,
and the hotel has been renamed. Tt is now known as the Sheraton Kansas City at Crown Center.
Thanks to the sweeping changes which took place in the wake of the disaster it has been described as
one of the safest buildings in the country. The legacy of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapss is
one of pain and trauma... but it is also a legacy of learning. Just as the renewed and reconstructed
hotel is safer than the old Hyatt Regency, so too are other buildings the world over.
The lessons learned on the 17th of July, 1981,
were excruciatingly painful. But they were lessons, at least, that stuck.