High winds from Sandy a factor in downtown Cleveland building damage that prompted evacuations

CLEVELAND - High winds may be partly to blame for damage to a downtown Cleveland office building that resulted in evacuations of Cuyahoga County's emergency center for wireless 911 calls.

Cleveland firefighters and rescue personnel were called to the Sterling Building in 1200 block of Euclid Avenue shortly before noon Tuesday.

Cleveland State University Professor Norbert J. Delatte evaluated the damage and suspects high winds from Hurricane Sandy contributed to the damage.

Dr. Delatte is chairman of Cleveland State's Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Delatte said the exterior "skin" of the building is several inches thick and designed to be essentially a wall covering and not a key structural component.

He suspects that excessive wind gusts literally got inside the wall and created the damage.

"You get a lot of suction as the wind goes by, particularly if the wind is parallel to the wall," said Delatte.

"So what you can see is you have a combination of the wind sucking the wall out -- and potentially getting inside into any opening or fissures that cause pressure on the inside."

Dr. Delatte said wind pressure overload at the top of the five-story structure is greater the higher the elevation.

He does not believe the damage would lead to a building collapse.

The Sterling Building was built in 1910 and once housed one of the finest home furnishing stores in the country.

It is now embroiled in a foreclosure lawsuit, but its current owner said repairs will be made as needed.

Cuyahoga County has been leasing space there for its 911 wireless communication center since 1978.

It recently negotiated out of the lease that was costing taxpayers $900,000 a year.