Originally Posted By: djb
I don't want to seem to miss the fun, but the disaster wasn't entirely the fault of the forklift operator.
He knocked a single corner support leg out of a warehouse rack. This shouldn't result in a Three-Stooges-like cascade of things falling over, ending up with the whole city turning into a heap of rubble.
It appears that the racks were not bolted to the floor, had no diagonal braces, had no floor-level bracing on the exposed corner, were top heavy, and were probably overloaded.
The next time you go to a big supply warehouse, check to see what precautions they take with the racks. They usually have all of these structural features, plus additional ties to the building structure, plus corner guards.
Yes, the rack is poorly designed and shelved. This could easily happen to any operator and one rack tipping over another in a domino effect shouldn't be allowed.