Reply #87: A beam giving way

[jmowreader]

When racking is up for long enough with a big enough load on it, the holes that keep the shelves up can give way.

One day I was filling a bay with pallets of concrete. I decided to fill the shelves, then the floor. I put the first pallet on the salesfloor shelf, then turned the reach truck to pick up the second pallet, when the front beam tore out the holes in the upright...and about 3500 lbs of concrete hit the floor. Tore up every bag.

You can hear this all over the store when it happens, so the first thing I know there's about twenty associates, including three managers, in the aisle. "What happened? Are you okay? Did you get injured?" No, I just put some concrete on the shelf and it decided it didn't want to be on that shelf any more.