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Comment by anonuser123456 | Hacker News Reader

>If I were writing a report on a piece of software for my boss and I found unsanitized inputs to an SQL database, I wouldn't highlight that any more than anything else I found as he would know that was severe.

Sure, but as software people we don't have a licensing body that will revoke our license to practice for such an omission. The firm and the author are likely required by their license to operate to make such call outs.

*edit: Also I would add that an engineering firm that believed the building was in imminent danger would not go forward with a project without calling that out and pricing it. They wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole because they would be on the hook if the building failed.

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They call out that it is an extremely expensive systemic issue that will need to be repaired (bullet point "b" on page 7), and the first paragraph on page 1 indicates they attached an estimate of the overall costs of necessary repair (although it does not appear to be included in this copy of the document).

What omission are you talking about?

I don't think the document omitted anything; I don't believe the engineer thought the building was at risk of catastrophic collapse.

My point is that _if_ the engineer believed the building was at risk of catastrophic failure they would have stated as much.

> My point is that _if_ the engineer believed the building was at risk of catastrophic failure they would have stated as much.

It seems like maybe the report author(s) did state as much when they said “major structural damage”. I don’t know anything about architecture but, for example, when an accounting firm issues an adverse audit opinion they don’t say “this company is totally screwed!” they say “these financial statements contain material and pervasive misstatements.” It sounds boring and benign to most people but it’s the CPA equivalent of a red alert.

>It sounds boring and benign to most people but it’s the CPA equivalent of a red alert.

Exactly. Joe Blow building manager is not a structural engineer. The comment about "major structural damage" at the end of report was probably not even read. The beginning of the document is about paint bubbles and 'the tile makes the rail too short'. That sets the context.

The article casts a building department administrator as having some dire knowledge of the building condition and simultaneously telling residents everything is fine. But a close examining of the situation leads me to believe the building department administrator had no such indication.

"An occupied building partially collapsed, killing multiple residents. But on the other hand, the report about its systemic structural issues was long and kind of a boring read"

Are you for real?

It's not about the building. It's about the story casting aspersions on someone as if they were culpable when there is no indication they are. This was done by reading the document out of context.

Put yourself in the shoes of a building administrator responsible for oversight of hundreds to thousands of properties. You get a report like this, on a relatively young building and it looks very ho-hum.

But NPR is presenting it with hindsight bias and acting as if there was something ominous in the report. There simply wasn't... and the story is just gotcha journalism.

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