At least one Christchurch University engineering faculty member can gear up for a star performance at the inquiry. He has told his students for years that Christchurch is full of earthquake-dangerous buildings and that he does not let his family enter some of them.
According to the recent graduate engineer in our family he was specific about the risks in modern and fashionable materials and techniques, as well as masonry. If the CTV building relied on materials on his black-list I hope that is revealed soon. Even if it is premature engineers should know now to be safe rather than sorry in buildings under construction.
Engineers all over the country will want to know immediately, long before the formal inquiry reports, just what should be built differently.
For example, us Wellingtonians, even in new buildings, are now scared of stairwells. The stair collapses in the Forsyth Barr building and the Grand Chancellor are even more disillusioning than the collapse of the relatively modern CTV building. Engineers better work out the stairwell thing quickly. I’d assumed that it was comparatively easy to build stairs that do not collapse even if it is hard to ensure that buildings are not munted overall.
We now want ropes in our offices. Get floor wardens with abseiling certificates instead of hard hats.
RSS feeds available for 
Stephen,
Over at our friend Eric Crampton site , Observable behaviour or what have you for a name, , the Economy academics are considering the price of petrol, and supplies and the nature of greed economic..
Sweet Jesus Stephen, will they not see our city is ruined , do they not leave their homes, to see the dust and the collapse, and the desolate,
do they just sit on their transferrable data base.
Do they not see that their students pour into our homes and give freely with shovels, alongside of the Christians ;
do they not see that everything has changed and that all the money and all the skill will leave Christchurch this year,