It’s deja vu for Pennsylvania based Summit Structures LLC.
The Dallas Cowboys' practice facility that collapsed Saturday was built by Summit, the same company to build a similar fabric building here in Philadelphia that collapsed six years ago.
The structure at Philadelphia's Tioga Marine Terminal fell in a snowstorm in February 2003, resulting in a $5.9 million payment by Summit to the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, which oversees the terminal.
"These two fundamental failures produced a building which simply collapsed under the weight of the first significant snowfall of the new year which were conditions that would have been easily tolerated by the building had it been properly designed and constructed," according to Common Pleas Court Judge Allan Tereshko.
Luckily no one was hurt in that incident, but that wasn’t the case in dallas. 11 people were injured at the Dallas practice facility, including a scouting assistant, Rich Behm, who is permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
So far investigators say a storm that brought 70 m.p.h winds are the prime suspect in the destruction of the 85-foot-tall Dallas structure, built by Summit in 2003.
Since the Dallas collapse, Summit Structures' president, Nathan Stobbe, has flown to Texas to assess the incident along with representatives of the Cowboys and other stake holders.
