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One national safety expert is calling into question the security of the Pella Walmart and other stores like it following last Thursday’s tragedy.

Last week, a Ford F-150 slammed through the front doors of Walmart, hitting four people and killing three of them.

Rob Reiter is Co-Founder of the Storefront Safety Council, a volunteer group aimed to raise the alarm of how frequent incidents are in which vehicles crash through storefronts. At least 60 crashes are reported daily in which vehicles collide with commercial buildings.

He says the Walmart store in Pella has major design flaws that authorities, architects, engineers, and lawyers could be taking a long look at, and many that are present at similar stores nationwide, starting with the traffic flow of the parking lot.

“The first was the unobstructed traffic flow that resulted from the drive aisle coming off of the road pointed directly at the front door of the store. More than 600 feet long, this is non-standard, this is risky design, this is inexpensive to correct,” he said. This racetrack is like having a loaded gun pointed right at your storefront. It was never a question of “if”, only a question of “when.” And a few days ago, this gun went off, and your community has suffered greatly.”

“The second was the substandard safety barriers installed at the entrance. Nothing about the row of bollards in front of the store conformed to “best practices” and they do not conform with the any of the usual templates that Walmart and Sam’s Club stores usually have for their storefronts. While some details are still subject to the investigation, it is likely that it will be found that the bollards were purchased from a non-American vendor and manufactured in China. The array of bollards was poorly designed, poorly installed, and as we have all seen, needlessly ineffective at stopping the pickup truck.”

Reiter says similar issues exist with the Knoxville Walmart store, but others like the one in Oskaloosa have sufficient measures in place. Reiter notes that the difference in cost between doing the storefront protection poorly and doing it effectively was likely less than $5000.

KNIA/KRLS did not receive specific answers to questions we posed to Walmart Corporate, including if they plan to add additional measures in response to last week’s accident. Instead, we received the following statement:

“The safety of our customers and associates is among our top priorities. We have consultants and engineers who designed this parking lot in accordance with local laws and regulations, and we go through permitting required by local jurisdictions for stores we own and operate.”

Reiter believes the City of Pella and other municipalities are not liable for safety issues, instead, it’s up to each store or property owner to ensure safety for customers.