Three and potentially more Inspectors with the New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits are under suspension after it was learned they were not making their rounds of building inspections.
One of the buildings an inspector allegedly skipped was the now collapsed Hard Rock Hotel. Another one reportedly missed is the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences going in at the former World Trade Center building on the Waterfront.
But can a missed inspection be blamed for the collapse that struck the Hard Rock?
We went to structural engineer H.J. Bosworth about the issue involving building inspectors and whether it could affect a building's integrity, and be the cause of a disaster like the Hard Rock Hotel collapse.
"The folks in Safety and Permits are there to see, to the best of their ability, you're building the building properly," Bosworth says. "They don't always study the plans—and nor should they."
"The developer should really depend on a professional," Bosworth emphasizes. "A professional that follows the building from the ground up."
Then what is it that Inspectors are supposed to do? "I don't believe they are required to give anything more than a cursory review what is about to go on," Bosworth responds.
"And never has an owner depended on the city, or municipal, or parish inspection guys to assure that they're getting what they're paying for."
In short, the responsibility is with the developer, always.
"If the developer had a competent engineer inspecting the project as it went together, a good clerk of the works, then they should be fine," Bosworth says.
In the end, it is the job of the project engineer, not the City Inspector, to determine if a project going up is safe, up to code, and responsibly constructed.
"The contractor should have someone on-site to make sure if something like that is happening—you stop everything and remedy the problem," Bosworth states. "If you have to take out a floor if you have to demolish something if you have to do whatever you need to do to make sure you don't keep going above something that is clearly unsafe."