Racking survives recent earthquake

Although some cartons fell from the racks, the rack system itself proved able to withstand the 5.7 temblor.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – On March 18th a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit near Salt Lake City, Utah, at about knocking out power to tens of thousands and damaging buildings. While there were no injuries reported, the quake spawned numerous aftershocks, forcing the airport to close and shutting down the area’s Covid-19 hot line for a time.

At the American Crafts warehouse, 16 km from the epicentre, the quake’s effects were visible, but proved the worth of the company’s racking system. The system, from Hannibal Industries, was undamaged. 

Based in Utah, American Crafts was founded in 1994 by Steve and Alma Mitchell with their sons to cater to the general crafting market. Since its inception, the company has transitioned focus from scrapbooking to art supplies, card making supplies, food crafting and more.

“We are just miles away from the epicenter and the racking system outperformed my expectation,” said Jason Harrington, American Crafts’ distribution centre manager.

“As an engineer, I believe my job is to design safer products that can prevent accidents and ultimately save lives. I was really pleased to hear TubeRack lived up to its design specifications during this seismic event,” said the inventor of the company’s patented TubeRack system, Andrew Kirby.

The racking system’s dual-moment frame allows flexibility both front-to-back and side-to-side giving it the ability to withstand impacts and seismic events while handling greater capacity.