The cover-up starts [update]

Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt will call an emergency meeting of council staff this morning to discuss the Stadium Southland roof collapse.

"My view is that we will have to meet first thing (Monday) because, although it's not a council-owned building – it's owned by a charitable trust – council would still be involved in terms of issuing building permits and things like that."

Mr Shadbolt has questioned whether the stadium had been built strong enough to withstand weather extremes.

"It will take a few days, I would imagine, before the dust settles and we find out what happened and why."

The cover-up begins. By mid-week the fix will be in. You know the one where the council 'engineers' had nothing to do with giving the OK to a 10 year old stadium. BTW, Tim, although things are heating up real fast, you won't see any dust, another normal weather event is on its way in...

Does whitewash work in such a normal weather event?

[update]
Radio Pravada reports further:

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt says the truss design was controversial from the start and caused friction between the engineers and insurance underwriters.

He says he can recall people saying on numerous occasions that the stadium's roof could collapse in a major snowstorm.

Mr Shadbolt says the council relied on engineers' reports which were peer reviewed when it signed off on the city's stadium, but concedes the council's building codes may have to be looked at.

But Acton Smith, who chairs the charitable trust that owns the stadium, says there were never any shortcuts in its design, nor have insurers ever had any problems with it.

How many councils are checking their codes this morning?