Rotted beam concealed by metal cladding caused Mifflin Street balcony collapse
Madison Fire Department personnel secure the structure in the aftermath of a balcony collapse at 544 W. Mifflin St. during the annual Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday. The balcony collapsed due to a rotted front beam concealed by metal cladding, city officials said Monday.
ANDY MANIS, FOR THE STATE JOURNAL
Madison officials believe a rotted front beam covered by metal cladding 35 years ago likely caused a second-story balcony collapse that injured three revelers during the Mifflin Street Block Party on Saturday.
Officials don’t believe anyone purposely hid rotten wood to avoid detection during a recent inspection.
The pillars and balcony of the duplex at 544 W. Mifflin St. were rebuilt in 1987, the same time new metal siding was applied to the structure, and it’s likely the wood beam was covered with metal cladding for aesthetic reasons at that time, city building inspector Matt Tucker said Monday.
Because the wood was covered, city inspectors doing exterior visual checks of buildings in advance of the annual block party would not have seen any deficiencies, Tucker said.
Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, who represents the site, said it’s “highly unlikely” the city will pursue any prosecution for the collapse “unless new information becomes available to Building Inspection.”
But Verveer vowed to explore ways to do more thorough inspections, which currently are limited under a state law passed in 2018. Under the law, city staff are not allowed to do detailed inspections unless invited by tenants or owners.
Building Inspection has been doing detailed studies of the properties in the area, starting last year, Tucker said. “The idea is to try and find un-permitted work that may be occurring during our annual walk, so we can require permits where such work is discovered.”
External checks
On March 17, building inspectors did external visual checks of every porch and balcony of the aging houses in the 400 and 500 blocks of Mifflin Street and the surrounding area to ensure they were safe before Saturday’s party, an event that is not sanctioned by the city but still draws thousands every year.
Inspectors found some issues at various properties, but none at 544 W. Mifflin St., which was built in 1929, Tucker said. The annual “walk-around” found mostly minor issues at other properties and all were resolved before the block party, he said.
Staff can spot a bowed or sagging balcony or porch, but would not have seen the wood rot in the beam because of the metal cladding, Tucker said. The cladding could have caused retention of moisture in the beam, he said.
“Our ability to perform programmed inspections of areas is limited by state law, so our opportunities to discover faults or maintenance issues is equally limited,” Tucker said. But even if staff could have inspected, the failure may have still happened, he said, adding that building codes for balconies can’t be relied upon to ensure an overloaded porch is safe.
“This once-a-year overloading is testing these balconies,” he said. “The tenant and property owner have some responsibility.”
A ‘scary’ collapse
About 11:30 a.m. — barely a half-hour into Saturday’s festivities when more than 10,000 revelers eventually took to the streets — the roughly 60-square-foot, second-story balcony at 544 W. Mifflin St. collapsed sending about a dozen revelers plummeting 15 feet to the ground, city officials said.
The failure of the rotted beam at the front of the balcony created a slide effect for the balcony floor, which never detached from the house, causing some revelers to fall to the ground, Tucker said. Officials still don’t know exactly what was happening on the porch at the moment of collapse, he said.
Three people were injured with two sent to UW Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, officials said. The status of a man taken to the hospital could not be confirmed but Verveer said a woman was released and actually returned to the event.
“I can’t overstate how scary this was,” Verveer said. “My greatest fear for this inevitable, unsanctioned event is a collapse of this sort.”
The property is owned by 544 W. Mifflin Street LLC, city Assessor’s Office records show. A representative of the LLC could not be reached.
Birwood Property Management of Madison is listed as the owner’s agent, the records show, and its personnel responded immediately after the collapse on Saturday, Verveer said.
A person answering the phone at Birwood on Monday declined to identify herself and said the company was “not giving out any information” about the balcony collapse at this time. Birwood also did not respond to questions sent by email.
On Monday, the 500 block of the street was quiet with a makeshift set of 2-by-10 boards shoring up the pillars of the balcony at 544 W. Mifflin St. and the balcony floor now fully removed. The building’s tenants were not displaced because firefighters had fortified the pillars on Saturday.
With the temporary measures taken to stabilize the porch, cap the electric for the front porch light, and maintain legal exiting of the dwellings, “we believe the building is safe,” Tucker said. “Permanent repairs are being ordered. Permits must be secured and construction inspected, similar to a repair project.”
Madison Building Inspection is handling a continuing investigation. The Madison Fire and Police departments do not have ongoing investigations into the collapse, agency spokespersons said.
“We are reviewing the facts and pictures, the history of the building from our records, and talking to staff that walked the area,” Tucker said. “We also plan to debrief with the Fire Department, to understand what they know. It’s reasonable to consider this could be done this week, but we will use all the time we need to do a thorough review.”
The Mifflin Street Block Party is a tradition dating back more than 50 years. The party started in 1969 as a “street dance,” but it escalated into a three-day riot after police tried to stop it because residents didn’t have a permit. The party has morphed throughout the decades into the giant, messy celebration that it is today.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the description of the first block party in 1969.
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