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Published Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008 | 4:14 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 2:14 p.m.
The Monte Carlo released this statement Saturday afternoon:
Clark County inspectors have now released the upper floors of Monte Carlo and the process of returning personal belongings to guests whose rooms were located on floors 27 through 32 has begun. Similar to the process for guests on floors 3 through 26, guests will be transported from their new hotels to Monte Carlo to retrieve their personal items.
Monte Carlo employees are now able to return to the hotel to reclaim any personal belongings left in lockers or work stations. Employees should use the regular employee entrance to enter the building. Employees called to work should arrive through that entrance as well.
Nearly all guests in the 2,400 rooms on floor 26 and below have retrieved their personal belongings left during the evacuation. Hotel staff is now in the process of normal cleaning and servicing of these vacant rooms, making them ready to receive guests when Monte Carlo reopens.
The MGM MIRAGE development staff is now assessing damage and determining a plan for reopening the resort. Additional information will be made available as it is appropriate to do so.
Anyone who watched the "live" TV coverage of the Monte Carlo fire could see the styrofoam decorative cornices on the top of the hotel, as well as cornices several floors below, burning like crazy. Fire was quickly spreading across the face of the hotel towers. It was like watching flaming, melted marshmallow at a campfire, with flaming goo falling onto the lower levels of the hotel and even onto the pedestrian plaza below.
Trying to make like there was no fire risk, Clark County now claims the styrofoam was coated with fiberglass and
stucco, so that it was "not a fire hazard" and was "up to code".
Stucco did not insulate the styrofoam cornices. Fiberglass coating did not insulate the styrofoam cornices. Clark County knew that years ago, when these styrofoam architectural details were allowed.
It was and still is well known that styrofoam gives off hideously toxic gases when burned. That is what was making the black smoke coming off the walls of the hotel....not the roof coating burning. You could clearly see that on TV.
After the MGM Fire, Las Vegas hotel/casinos succeeded in convincing their customers that the building codes had been changed so a fire in a hotel tower could not become widespread. The Monte Carlo fire proved that public relations message wasn't true. Take a look at how much more "faux stone detail" is found on the outside of the Paris, Venetian, Palazzo, and Bellagio towers. All styrofoam based.
In 2007 Clark County (in the person of the head building inspector and county executive) looked the other way, refusing to address complaints about fire safety code violations at the Harrah properties...until the LVRJ spent money for experts to bring these county employees' moral corruption to light. That same crooked head building inspector was on TV yesterday and today, telling us that the County is investigating.
They are investigating squat. The Clark County Commissioners, County Executive, and Chief Building Inspector are wholly owned by the major casinos. Nothing will change. There will be no retrofitting.
And even if he does care about fire safety, the new County Fire Chief is politically smart enough to protect his job by obfuscating and acting nice and naive when asked about fire safety risk at ANY of the big hotels.
What's even worse are the stories of hotel tower guests, reported in the newspapers today, telling about the hotel's half assed, belated evacuation of the property. Read those stories and pray that the next big hotel fire, like the one in 1980, doesn't kill 89 people, or even one person.
Are you going to believe the head Building Inspector in Clark County or your lying eyes.
It is curious too why despite much interest nationwide on this issue no press has picked up the story.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthre...
It seems to me building inspection could adopt a reasonable compromise to open the hotel and still have the questionable material ordered removed. By declaring the same material safe and to code the day after everyone saw it burn is amazing and to be sure driven by the economically catastrophic decision to close it until its replaced..a process that could take months....The hotel would lose its staff and there would be terrible loses.
The alternative is to order it removed..provide extra monitoring in the meantime and keep the hotel open.
one more comment. I am sure MGM will not merely patch with the same stuff but redesign the entire cornice and sign with something much better. Since they have to do the work anyway do it right. The real issue is what this means for the other hotels that use similar facades. No doubt they just want this to go away. Ordering new facades on all the major hotels in Las Vegas is economically catastrophic. They will probably declare this case closed after repairs completed.
"It seems to me building inspection could adopt a reasonable compromise to open the hotel and still have the questionable material ordered removed."
I agree. But at some point in time, burning styrofoam architectural details will happen again, on another hotel tower.
The people to be blamed for the continued risk to public safety are the past and present Clark County's Commissioners, County Executives and Senior Building Department decision makers, who let themselves be unduly influenced.
oltimedemo..please check the thread mentioned above in skyscraper.com. One poster shows picture of Atlantic City hotel with EIFS.. same material that burned the entire side of a building (hotel) under construction. The stuff seems definately flamable if we can believe our eyes.
Did anybody ever think that the coating and syrofoam system installed saved the building and acted as a sacrafical cow giving the fire fighters time to save the building?