grant1simons2 wrote:First off, a routine thunderstorm doesn't make national news like last nights did. Second, they've been having problems with that part of the stadium, the highest most wind hitting point, for a bit now. See my pictures above. Although I agree that it probably shouldn't be happening, I know that construction materials (even the best ones) do fail from time to time. Especially when they haven't had time to settle and sit before the weather hits.
Yesterday's storms were fairly routine as far as the conditions that the stadium experienced. Yes, some parts of the metro and state received severe straight-line winds but downtown did not. I'm not sure what your source for the 67mph gust is. It's not entirely impossible but there's no official weather station downtown. The nearest is the airport which received a max gust of 49mph yesterday. Regardless, a 60mph+ wind gust is bound to happen to several times a year.
My point is that this is the effectively the first bad weather the stadium received and it took a noticeable amount of exterior damage. The damage wasn't limited to the western side of the stadium either. As posted earlier, the north side of the stadium got some damage too. I realize that things will fail from time to time but it couldn't even pass its first test. I'm not a construction expert but I don't think mounting these zinc panels use a super exotic construction method. I'm not sure giving it more time to "settle" would matter. We're talking about metal, not freshly poured concrete.
Maybe I'm rambling, it's just a somewhat disappointing sight. I feel like these panels will keep being an issue. Sure the Metrodome failed a few times but that was under unusual loads of snow, the new stadium couldn't survive its first severe thunderstorm without damage.
