Questioning the Safety of Home Depot’s Shelves

As an architect building my own home, I have spent many an hour in the Jefferson Boulevard Home Depot [“ ‘Sky Shelves’ Can Be Lethal for Shoppers,” Aug. 16] in Los Angeles.

A contractor friend (who was knocked unconscious by a falling box in the same Home Depot) told me that I should always wear a hard hat.

Recently, I was knocked down by falling merchandise and have taken up the hard hat as the one way to reduce the danger. I was attempting to get a sheet of rigid insulation when the whole stack of 20 sheets fell on me, knocking me back against the pipe rail of the cart and snapping my neck back. The 4-by-8-foot sheets had been stacked exactly vertical, instead of leaning back and, like dominoes, they all fell forward on me when I removed the front one.

An architect is charged with looking out for public safety, and I have on many occasions pointed out unsafe conditions to store employees. One of the major obstacles to safety is the educational level of the employees. In order to maximize profit, Home Depot pays as little as possible and doesn’t hire many people who are educated enough to understand simple math and the physics of why things fall.

Once, I noticed that someone had placed three pallets of solid lumber on top of each other and on the highest support pins on the racks, with nothing securing them. The support pins were welded to clips that hooked onto posts. I informed the manager that I was an architect and had studied structural engineering and that, in my opinion, the load was too great for the two welds that were supporting the tons of wood. His answer was that the stacking was “within regulations.” When I argued with him, he refused to budge from that answer.

I have spoken many times to managers about stocking during daytime hours. One of the worst examples was when a 2-foot high stack of copper tubing was unbundled on the floor in front of the copper fittings. A customer attempting to get a fitting would have had to walk on the pile of loose, rolling tubes.

I am sure that Home Depot and others consider the accidents and deaths to be a “cost of doing business,” until it becomes publicized enough, as in the Firestone tire case. Then they are forced to do something about it.

RUSSELL K. JOHNSON, AIA

Los Angeles