Sausalito Steel Post

I wrote an entry last year about a potential catastrophic failure of a building in El Sobrante and since those are probably the more interesting things to read about, I'm posting another potential failure I saw earlier this week. This one is in Sausalito and I'm sure the house is easily worth over a million dollars just because of the view.



This house is on a hill and the rear portion, as well as a cantilevered deck, are supported on steel beams and posts. There are three 6"x6" I-shaped posts along the back wall, one at each corner and one in the middle. When I was out there watching a footing being poured I noticed that one of the corner posts had some serious corrosion at the base due to rust. It had eaten through a good portion of the steel and it looked like it wouldn't take much to break it loose, i.e. a good shake from a 6.5 earthquake maybe.




It can be hard to judge what would happen when you take out a key support piece since other members can take over, but in this case it looked like a good portion of that corner would collapse and possibly take out part of the house next to it on its way down. Luckily they're doing work down in that area so it was noticed and will be taken care of, but this is one of those things that might not be paid attention to otherwise. A few more years of neglect could have resulted in something quite disastrous.