Staying just hours ahead of another snow storm expected to hit Virginia’s Dulles International Airport on Feb. 10, about 40 workers from Miller & Long Concrete Construction, Bethesda, Md., installed 65 towers to shore the sole-surviving aircraft hangar unit at the three-year-old United Jet Center. Three other units at the private hangar collapsed during a Feb. 6 storm, which dumped 35.5 in. of wet snow on the facility’s roof. No one was injured during the three collapses, but many of the 14 aircraft were damaged.
Heavy shores under the manufactured-steel hangar’s framing members are intended to cut down long spans and provide lateral bracing. “This is not an engineered support system; it’s my experience telling me what to do,” says Allyn E. Kilsheimer, president of Washington, D.C.-based KCE Structural Engineers PC.