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I don’t know why but I thought this was in the 70s. Horrible accident that could have been averted if they’d done the calculations after changing the rod structure.
This was a big deal event; it wound up being a key example / point of discussion in several of my classes. It's been gone over many times, but it's one of those events that bears repeated scrutiny.
@@rubiconnn He was likely unpaid for the ASCE Forensic Engineering Congress talk he gave as speakers at most receive free entry to the event. As for the university lectures it's likely that at most he received expenses (he was retired when he gave the talks and none of the talks were at commercial events) but you could always check that rather than looking like a complete dick.
You spend your life working hard to design beautiful and useful things, then you screw up and people die. In this day it would be everyone for themselves in a CYA scramble. That Jack felt guilty for the mistake and felt himself to be better than that, and to atone for it in a constructive way, says a lot for him and other genuine people in the trade. Mistakes can happen, but when lives are on the line you damn well better triple-check everything you can. It might just make a difference.
That runs true with most things! I rehabber for a Job I used to work at having a training video telling you to not put your hand in the fryer, because someone had done that before!
As someone that works in the architectural design industry, and that went through an incident where a steel fabricator failed on their end, I am chilled by this video. Thankfully our building wasn't even near completion by the time the issue presented itself, but it set forth quite a lot of engineering re-calculations, insurance companies assessing the engineering and financial damages, and so on; It was a real mess. No one got hurt as construction halted until it could be refabricated, I am so glad the issue was apparent before it went any further.
I remember this being the first case study in my engineering classes. What a tragic event. It's a very good study of engineering and how a simple change can cause devastating effects.
both designs are stupid and unsafe. one the original deisgn only a single nut holds each floor at each corner. and only a single rod at each corner holds all the floors. combined with metal fatigue= collapse
The term 'safety regulations are written in blood' rings particularly true here. Brill vid as ever, sir. Would like to see you, if you haven't already, cover the likes of Ronan Point & Grenfell Tower here in the UK, both of which are in the same ballpark as the Hyatt Regency, in terms of lax regulations, cost-cutting and lack of oversight coming home to roost with horrific consequences.
And yet it's not entirely true is it? The good regulations certainly are (let's not pretend that's all of them), but how many of those are also written in an way that stagnates the development of newer ways of doing things that are not actually dangerous? It's not an insignificant barrier to get those changed to move to something that would be even safer. Regulations, lax or strict, are only as meaningful as their enforcement and the intentions of those doing the enforcement. Similarly with oversight and cost cutting. It's tempting to say "X is the solution to all potential problems if only we could do it right," but that rather ignores the last half of the statement. Systems are only ever as good as their implementation.
@@farmerboy916 I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make or how it supports your premise that “safety regulations are (not) written in blood”. The phrase means: usually people don’t take safety seriously until after someone gets hurt, maimed, or killed. Then there’s the all-too-predictable reaction: “How could this happen? Why didn’t somebody do something about this sooner?!” When inevitably, people will frequently ignore safety rules, thinking they’re “only to protect idiots from themselves” and feeling superior, or that it’s “just for the lawyers”, or thinking it’ll never happen to them, or thinking “I’ve always done it this way and never had a problem.” as if that’s any predictor of the chance of an occurrence. The crux of the problem is that accidents are generally not precisely predictable, so quickly we fall into a false sense of security, as nothing bad appears to be happening, so we conclude therefore everything must be A-OK. I’ve had a serious interest in disasters and catastrophic failures for decades, and what “safety regulations are written in blood” means to me is: the reason for a safety rule may not be obvious, and it may seem utterly needless. But it’s generally in your own best interest to follow them, whether you understand their origin or not.
Is that the high rise condo tower where an entire corner pancaked like 10 floors onto each other? If so that was one of the strangest collapses I’ve ever seen, not just the fact it was so precisely limited to just the units in one corner, but also the fact it arbitrarily stopped pancaking after perhaps 10 floors. I can’t think of another skyscraper pancaking collapse that just ceased, leaving dozens of floors beneath unharmed.
Fun fact: Chainsaws were originally invented to widen the pelvis by removing bone when a baby couldn't fit its head through. So a chainsaw amputation suddenly seems quite nice in comparison.
The best description I've heard of the difference between the original and revised walkway designs is two people hanging onto a rope versus one person hanging onto a rope and a second person hanging onto the first person's legs.
Thanks!!! 😃 I have watched so many videos about this disaster over the years, and I still never quite understood it until now that you make this analogy. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
That's a great way of illustrating how the force distribution changes with that design change. The ceiling the rope is attached to takes the same amount of weight in both cases, but the 4th floor walkway (the person on top on the rope) isn't strong enough to hold the weight of the walkway below it (the second person on the rope).
Engineering seems like that. I'm not an engineer but I do love learning about disasters, part of it just curiosity but part of it is fascinating because of exactly what you said, such a small seemingly insignificant thing can change absolutely everything to disastrous consequences. There was one, although there's no doubt in many, major aviation accident with the loss of all lives after the tiniest change was made that affected the strength of the aircraft on a commercial liner. It was absolutely insignificant seeming change, but it puts stress in the new design or modification in locations where stress was not originally anticipated by engineers. It took decades but finally disaster hit. Absolutely horrific. But that's also why it's interesting I'm afraid.
I caught that too. Part of the reason there were so many casualties and fatalities was because, in the year since it opened, it had become an incredibly popular place to host events like dancing, music, etc. This was one of the regular events,
There is a recreation based video made by some documentary company and the content is pretty, well... harrowing. I can't even imagine what it would actually be like. I'm glad that both of your families survived this odd turn of events in not wanting to go and it's a shame we can't say the same to the 100+ people who didn't make it out that day.
I've been to this hotel many times and clearly remember hearing about it on the news as we were returning home from a vacation. PD - you might want to consider a video on the 1988 quarry explosion that killed 6 kc firefighters. It is a tragic event that deserves to be remembered.
@@kcgunesq I was getting ready for work that morning when my house rumbled from the explosion. I live five miles away from where it happened. That's how strong it was.
On site amputation with a chainsaw. I know that's a deeply traumatic and life chaning event for everyone involved, but you just know the doctor who did that was telling stories about it for the rest of their career.
@@5roundsrapid263 Probably a lot less than they'd like. Morphine causes a sudden drop in blood pressure so it's used very sparingly where massive blood loss is a factor.
@@fix0the0spade if you are lucky your brain is overwhelmed and you don't feel much out of shock. if you are not that lucky. May god have mercy on your soul.
I recall reading that there were a few instances of that kind of thing happening, and it was done to save trapped people from drowning in the water that was flooding the area from the broken sprinklers.
@@JanxAngel Jesus just let them drown, it's a lot less painful and you're probably going to die anyway if someone cuts through multiple major arteries with a tool that _rips_ stringy and soft material rather than cuts it.
I swear to god people who willingly become fire fighter’s and medical workers are the finest humans on earth. They are on another level, to have to go through what they see is insane
I saw Fascinating Horror's video in this exact incident. while well done, they didn't demonstrate as well as you did *exactly* how the collapse happened. they described it accurately, but did not *show* what went wrong. well done sir
Absolutely horrific tragedy in every way. I can not imagine how terrifying that had to have been to experience for not only the victims and survivors, but those who were involved with the aftermath. Your placement on the disaster scale was spot on.
I spent a year on a work assignment in Kansas City in 2013 and it was definitely still in the community's consciousness even after thirty-odd years....
I hold an associates degree in both architectural and mechanical design and not only was this something we learned about in my architectural class, but was also something we formulated with in our stress and strengths class. The first illustration of those walkways really brought me back. We did many calculations and talked about this and the overall importance of doing the job *right* many, many times. Great video
I worked as a consulting engineer, and this is a classic case of a change order that was just signed off on, without any investigation. Used to get them ALL the time during jobs that were under construction, and very much hated having to spend my morning sifting through and marking up 100's of pages of change orders from contractors, but that was what was required to avoid nasty surprises down the road. Most of them meant well, but would often miss the design intent. But there was some scumbaggery as well, with them trying to substitute everything but the electric service from the utility to cut cost as much as possible. On some of those, I would reject them outright, and make them purchase what was outlined on the finished plans, or at least have them call and explain themselves.
@Shadow Otter - Thought the same damn thing. Spent 10yrs as a volunteer/paid-on-call Level 3 Fighter in Northern Illinois and was thinking the Hurst tool/aka: the-jaws-of-life, an axe or even a hack-saw (after a shot of morphine) would have been a 1000x better than taking someone’s leg with a damn chainsaw. I’m hoping that story isn’t true/is just an urban legend that got spread via the bs rumor mill.
The views of the damaged beams have finally helped me understand what happened here. Other "documentaries" I have seen over the year were not so clear. Bravo.
As always an amazingly put together video, and an interesting subject - deeply saddening that a 'simple' change for convenience could have such an impact, truly a cautionary tale. But, kudos to the designer who lectured about the mistake. It must have hurt him every time, but, you wonder how many lives he may have saved. Thank you again for thought-provoking videos and the amount of effort you put into them.
Dangerous nuclear waste: I aint holding shit 😠....I sling shit all over the place with such speeds I kill all living things near me. Stay the fuck outta my radius for a long time, bitch. Walkway: Jesus Christ, chill...😬
Even thought there's plenty of building disasters out there that teach you to never cutting around corners, there's someone who will just ignore all these stuff and ignore it with the believe that "it won't happen to me".
This wasn’t about cutting corners. This was about problems with process. The original design was too difficult to build. Somebody made a drawing of their suggestion of how to make it easier. This unapproved suggestion somehow got built without anybody ever analyzing it.
That's the entire state of Oklahoma. I passed under a sagging highway bridge with plywood bolted to the underside to keep the concrete from falling on the road i was driving on just yesterday xD
@@HamburgerAmy Well that’s a situation where you certainly need an engineer. To decide if the falling concrete is a danger to the people under the bridge. Or the people on top of the bridge. And some bridges the concrete supports the bridge on others it’s the steel girders.
@@neilkurzman4907 that's why you pay experts. I'm not an engineer, but I'm smart enough to know I'm not an engineer. Meaning, if I'm not absolutely certain about something, which is going to be the case when it involves anything being structurally sound or not, I'm not going to assume it's probably okay or it's probably good enough to do some remediation. When it comes to something like a bridge, you better get experts on it. Even bridges with engineers involved in modern days have failed, so it still is possible to go wrong even with expert help. mistakes are made. But you better give it every chance possible to do it right, life is depend on it. And yet just like was said, someone who has no business making the decision and someone who doesn't know any better says, "good enough," and that's how the situation is dealt with. It's amazing how much trust we put on people to have done their jobs and to be ethical, and redundancies in place in case any system May fail whenever possible. It's really amazing that bad things don't happen more often. But most times when it does go wrong, you can find later why it went wrong and hopefully prevent it in the future. Until that person comes around and says, that happened to them, it'll never happen again. Reminds me of when I worked at a facility where I was an assistant safety manager. Safety was greatly improved in many different areas over time after some hard work and lots of meetings and motivating people that the safe way was the best way to go. So I can only imagine the look on my face when I was told that they were cutting our budget because things were so much safer now, they didn't need a safety department to speak of, because loss and injuries were so far down....I don't have words to describe what I feel about that MBA executive's thought process
This is still taught in engineering classes today. I believe we covered this in my statics course as a cautionary tale. I believe part of the consideration for the design change was in large part due to the cost of having one long threaded rod versus the two shorter end threaded rods. Threaded rods are damned expensive by comparison.
I'm glad you covered this. I live in Columbia, MO, just about 120 miles away from Kansas City. The first time I heard about the worst disaster in the state's history was in a book about disasters I read in 5th grade. The first and only time it was taught to me was my robotics class in 10th grade. I guess nobody in the school district ever heard the quote "those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it".
@Kenneth Stark - Sure makes one think twice when seeing similar walkway designs. And Just think of the 10s of millions of ppl who trust current/similar designs that could maybe be nearing failure(?) I will never look at suspended walk ways the same way, that’s for sure.
I lived in Kansas City at the time this occurred. I worked for an insurance company and, on the Monday following this disaster, my department received a letter from an attorney who represented my company and had been killed in the incident. It was extremely eerie.
As a newly minted engineer at the time, I was acutely aware of this event due to coverage in professional journals and discussions with colleagues. While the original design was sufficient to carry the load on July 17, 1981 it did not meet code and no one had actually done calculations on the design. The engineering company sent the design as a "concept" to the fabricator with the assumption that the fabricator would do the calculations. It was a case of extreme negligence on the part of the responsible engineer who didn't recognize that the original design really couldn't reasonably be assembled and didn't do the calculations for the design that he signed-off on. He was the sole Registered Professional Engineer working on ten of the projects of similar scale for his company. The nuts were NOT the issue. The nut at the top of the upper rod had exactly the same load on it as at the bottom of the rod, and it was the same as the original design, and they didn't fail. The failure was correctly described up to 3:33, but it goes off track in the discussion of the nut, it was the load the nut placed on the fabricated beam that was the problem, the nuts were NOT the source of failure, they pulled through the beams. Nuts don't fail in any designed bolted connection, the nuts are made of material that is stronger than the bolt/stud/rod and the length of engagement is sufficient that the threads don't strip and the bolt/stud/rod will break in tensile failure, they are literally designed to be able to pull the bolt/stud/rod apart before they could fail. A change in the design of the beams would have made the structure as strong as the original design and it still wouldn't have met the city's design code.
A good video. My father-in-law's high school reunion was at that tea dance. He didn't feel well so he and my mother-in-law did not go to the dance, for which we were all grateful!
I was gonna say, as an engineering firm what do you do after that? Especially if you're the owner. Using your experience as a cautionary tale is a great way to help others
@Nathan Ouellette - Very true. Incidentally, it surprises me criminal negligence was not found. For the defendants in this case, hearing the jury return such a verdict, has got be the absolute best thing one could ever hear.
Jack Gollum, the lead designer, felt horrible guilt for the rest of his life and dedicated his remaining life to lecturing architecture students. He said he "wanted to scare the daylights out of them" to try and prevent something like this from ever happening again. This event, and with his encouragement, changed the laws and guidelines in architecture and construction, so they did everything they could to bring a sliver of good from this horrible event. With regards to charges, for some reason engineering disasters rarely end up with those responsible serving much punishment. If they go to jail at all they usually seem to only serve a tiny portion of their sentence, but usually the charges are dropped or acquitted and they pay the victims and their families. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding this case: The Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and Land Surveyors found the engineers at Jack D. Gillum and Associates who had approved the final drawings to be culpable of gross negligence, misconduct, and unprofessional conduct in the practice of engineering. They were acquitted of all the crimes with which they were initially charged, but the company lost its engineering licenses in the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, as well as its membership with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
@@__WJK__ the defendant would be the one responsible who is trying to prove themselves innocent. In this case the defendant would be the architecture firm.
Love your channel! I really appreciate you saying the number on the disaster scale out loud - my vision isn't the best so hearing it as well really helps. Great work!
For the very first time on Plainly Difficult, this is a disaster that I knew about and which subsequently piqued my interest in failure analysis. Nice job!
One newspaper headline screamed: 'Did they care enough to build the very best?' A take off on the Hallmark motto at the time with regard to their greeting cards: 'Did you care enough to send the very best?' A waggish comment, but spot on, at the time.
This was one of the first things my professor taught in my statics class. It was scary enlightening how much it put into perspective how such a seemingly simple design change can lead to cataclysmic effects.
"this is exactly why RISK analysis exists." Well, yeah, but you're not thinking of that large a process for small changes like cutting a bar in half, before or after the change...he does go over this at the beginning of the video, and it's probably why they were not deemed culpable (it was too tiny a mistake, not a colossal clusterfuck like using a screwdriver to hold a nuclear test apparatus open).
My parents were both there at the tea dance. My dad's best friend and lawyer went to get a drink at the bar, which was located under one of the sky walks, when the collapse happened. Nine times out of ten my dad would have gone with him, but this time he didn't. My dad, who is a physician had to identify him, but he was only able to do so by the clothes he was wearing. His name was Sam Cottingham, and he was a wonderful person. When my parents had friends over, he would be the guy who would play with the kids, as was the case with me. Such a sad ending to a nice man. My parents were lucky that night, but my father suffered depression for a long while, following this tragedy.
The designer who went on to give classroom presentations about what went wrong is honorable. Imagine how difficult it would be to face that trauma, to help future engineers avoid making the same mistake.
I definitely liked this video! I've seen videos on the Collapse before, but yours is the first that explains the point of failure clearly enough for me to follow the details. I want to know more about this chainsaw amputation, however. Was it someone who was trapped under wreckage? Was the doctor just at the party, first responders aren't normally full fledged doctors, and where the hell did the chainsaw come from!? Inquiring minds!
Don’t remember why the doctor was at hand, but I seem to remember there was construction nearby, which was why they were able to get equipment there so quickly. Not only the chainsaw, but they bobcat they broke down the doors with.
This tragedy is always with us here in KC. 20 years later I stepped inside and you can still feel the pain of what happened. Rather creepy to this day.
At first I was excited about you talking about my hometown, but then I remembered how horrible this was. Another accident that happen here was a major explosion at a construction site that killed firefighters back in 88/89
Remembering this disaster as I lost a teacher, Mr. Decruff that night. Visiting this disaster in light of the disaster in Florida where an entire section of a condo collapsed.
So I guess not a whole lot has changed then. To be fair the big exception is that (in the US at least, others have to give information about their countries) fire codes have greatly improved for commercial and government buildings. Single occupancy homes are cheaper and pre-assembled more and more, held together with glue and gussett plates, so fire does spread incredibly quickly. they can be incredibly strong under normal conditions, but under fire conditions fail very easily. But in an imperfect world, with builders themselves often actually on fire code committees, fire safety at least has really has come a long way, at least in commercial structures here. Although fire inspections are another key part of that, and don't occur in most residences but do occur usually in commercial buildings. And people have this incredible tendency to circumvent fire safety measures through incredible means. Engineers often do their jobs, for some random employee to completely disable the firewall or remove fire resistance to part of a structure just by being careless or trying to make their job easier. But engineers at least are doing their part.
@@toddabowden Eh, fire safety has come a long way in private homes too. At least in some ways; now that we have fire blocking and non-flammable insulation and drywall in current frame built homes. The bigger problem are all the synthetics and tinder that go inside the house as furnishing, that go up quicker than old wood furniture/ hardwood floors and produce way worse smoke.
@@farmerboy916 Thought most furnishings such as mattresses are pumped full of fire retardants considering a string of cigarette related deaths in decades past?
@@farmerboy916 That sounds like it would be safer, less fuel for a fire and all that? I'd say the massive reduction of paper in most households along with falling smoking rates and improvements to electrical codes would make them far safer than any given home in the 70s
Hey, I just looked at this because they mentioned it while talking about the condo collapse in Florida. It being one of the top deadliest. I remember it happening, I was 18 and graduating high school. Newspapers and TV LOL! No instant internet. Anyways, I like how you show in great detail that the nut is holding the weight of the walkways etc. One tiny little nut! (Really more than one, but it shows the design flaw) very good explanation and you can tell it is a weak point! Thanks!
I think it's very important for people to remember the mistakes of the past, specially when they caused such a great loss of life, instead of trying to make everyone forget about them so the reputation of the people responsible doesn't suffer the consequences. That's why I find channels like Plainly Difficult and Fascinating Horror so important, they help us remember, they tell the stories of tragedies that should not be forgotten and should never happen again.
Fascinating video. Only comment would be that whilst putting the archive footage on the virtual TV set is cute, it makes it really small and hard to see when viewing on mobile.
@Plainly Difficult I have a couple if you don't mind. 1. Cocoanut Grove fire. 2. Oppau BASF Factory explosion. Good luck and thanks for the ongoing content. 🙂👍
If you’re into fire disasters, you could also consider to cover the Backa fire in Gothenburg, Sweden, where arsonists killed 63 young people when setting fire to a discotheque. This is one of the most traumatic events in Sweden as so many young people died, almost overshadowing the Estonia catastrophe. The fire on the ferry Scandinavian Star, 1990, that ran between Norway and Denmark is another major catastrophe in our neighbourhood
This is so weird! I was just thinking about the Hyatt Regency disaster the other day when some dormant brain cell, that had been asleep since engineering school, suddenly woke up! Great Video as usual!! Cheers! 😜
I myself was there that day. I was being honored for saving children from a fire…. When this happened. I saved as many as I could so I was still a hero
I haven’t been able to watch as soon as they are released as per normal- work, children, and all that jazz. However I am still a proud Plainly Diifi-Cult member. On that note this is unsurprisingly another excellent production by John.
Something about it always bugged me, and it was the safety factor. It failed at double the load which means that the safety factor was under 2, which seems real low when we’re talking about suspended walkways. Not that it would have helped any, but still...
Excellent Job, excellent work on the video overall. Structural disasters via Human Error are rare in America but they do happen. Seconds from Disaster had an episode on this disaster. I'm waiting for a video upload on the Miami Condo collapses documentary that killed 98 people. R.I.P.
I’m glad to live in Chile, a land of earthquakes, so every construction is earthquake proof. We had a huge one 10 years ago and nothing happened to the buildings. I used to live in Miami Beach so since the Miami disaster I’m kind of afraid of collapsing buildings 😰 haha
@@scottishroad_pinoy9084 THeyre also called earthquake resistant if you want a name to take that into account. Earthquake resistant buildings arent perfect for sure but theyre constructed in a way that makes collapse a whole lot less likely. Life saving
I remembered this disaster. And I remember the design change effect the disaster. What I did not remember was who made the change, although I do recall it was done during the building stage. Very well done.
From a full-length documentary I watched on this disaster, the hotel’s water pipes broke in the collapse causing uncontrollable flooding, and I recall a significant number of the deaths were actually drownings from trapped victims who couldn’t be rescued in time. I’m pretty sure they had footage of some of the victims being rescued (unless I’m confusing this with that 3rd world (Bangladesh perhaps?) clothing factory that was like 9 stories high, 3 additional stories constructed higher than authorized, where the rooftop generators ultimately caused vibrations that made the entire structure collapse. Now that’s truly a devastating one, I think a LOT more people died in that, possibly 500. It was around 2003 or so.)
I was a high school freshman living in Missouri when the collapse happened. I remember initial news reports speculating that the crowd had caused the collapse because they were swaying to the music on the walkways.
I remember when this happened, what a horrible time it was for so many people. The book "Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail" by Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori is a great and informative read, I would bet a number of your viewers already know it. Keep up the great videos.
thank you for your content man! Your vids are really bingeable and have so much rewatch value, learning about all these things really expands my knowledge by a ton!
Just follow the design! This is what happens when people can't read directions and plans. I work in construction and you have to check and double check what is going on.
@@neilkurzman4907 you would have to figure out a way to get the threads through the platforms as designed or redesign the box end and nut/washer to carry double the load.
@@bartfoster1311 That’s exactly what happened the contractor couldn’t build it as designed and said can I do this instead. No engineer and reviewed it and said no this will fail, but if we do this it will work. The engineering lessons to be learned here. First make sure your design can actually be built. And make sure all changes are properly reviewed.
@@bartfoster1311 - Yeah, if only those boxed beams/square beams would have been continuous vs having had welded seems, the walkway may not have failed, or failed as catastrophically.
@@__WJK__ All box beams/HSS have a welded seam. This is a classic case of architects and engineers designing something with zero thought about manufacturability. The weld in the tube likely wouldn’t have been an issue had it been loaded as designed, however it couldn’t be built as designed, the fabricator suggested the easiest fix they could think of, and nobody from the engineering firm bothered to re-run the calculations. Has they instead used a coupler nut or increased the size of the threaded rods and plated the beam to increase its strength they may have avoided this entire situation.
This is crazy god bless them!!! I was actually born July 17, 1981 in Kansas City! This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about this collapse at Hyatt Regency!! I can’t believe I never heard anything about this!! I’ll be 40 this month!!😳🤡.
For any of you that are interested, there's also a seconds from disaster episode on this. It covers the disaster in more detail. Just look up "Seconds from Disaster skywalk collapse"
I use this collapse as an example of missing the details. Think of a rope hanging from the ceiling. The as designed would have 2 people each grabbing onto the rope. The as built had the upper person holding onto the rope and the bottom person holding onto their ankles. Also, think of the designs that have used up most of the safety margin but are stable, until a modification is made years later causing the system to fail.
A dad in my scout troop was a beat cop on duty when this happened; he talked about how he ran in there with his little duty first aid kit and just stopped in his tracks. I can't say for sure but I'm pretty sure he was re-living that moment right then and I can't even begin to imagine how he felt or feels.
"It still remains the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure in American history" The way things seem with the Champlain Towers collapse, this horrible record is increasingly seeming to be broken. A horrible disaster which will probably take years to understand why it happened. I look forward to a short documentary about the Champlain Towers collapse when all the details are figured out.
The hotel collapse here still holds the record 114 dead where as the condo collapse is 97 dead with 11 missing. Not that it a record KC ever wanted to have. But in factual terms that record is not broken. And there are lots of mini documentary out on Surfside already. But the official report may take some time you are right.
I remember studying this incident in college. It was used as an example of how small changes in designs can have major and sometimes catastrophic consequences. Also served as a warning that seemingly small mistakes in designs could in fact kill people.
I can't help but think that if the rods were forged with the threaded sections a larger diameter, the nuts would just slide up to the section where they're threaded, the narrower sections being smaller than the minor thread diameter. I also think that hanging steel cables could have been done cheaper again.
Great video. I’d like to see one of the wreck of the “Congressional” train in Philadelphia on Labor Day 1943. My grandfather was a PRR track supervisor and had to clear up the wreck.
Here's a fun fact I can tell you as a Kansas City native, Kemper Arena is also here in town, so I guess were just great at making buildings that don't want to stay up. Also my parents were invited to that tea dance by some church friends but decided that morning not to go. Weird to think how my life might have turned out if they had gone. I might not even exist since this was about 4 years before I was even born! Sometimes it really is just one decision that can change everything you know what I mean?
I was born and raised in Kansas City and still live in SW Missouri. I remember when this happened. We watched a lot of this unfold. It was just devestating. Since then, I avoid glass walkways and if I have to walk across I do it quickly. Seriously. I'm afraid of heights anyway and this disaster just made it worse. Side note: Not that it really matters but my sister dated one of the brothers that owned the company that put in all of the windows in that hotel.
In Canada, the Quebec Bridge collapse of 1907 often comes to mind for engineering catastrophe. But this one in kc is simply simple it makes it ominous.
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I don’t know why but I thought this was in the 70s. Horrible accident that could have been averted if they’d done the calculations after changing the rod structure.
The midroll marker worked well
This was a big deal event; it wound up being a key example / point of discussion in several of my classes. It's been gone over many times, but it's one of those events that bears repeated scrutiny.
I watch all of your videos and enjoy all the content you make.
Thank you!
Jack definitely had integrity. Not many would go on tour to talk with students about their failures.
That’s because most teachers are bullshit.
A lot aren’t.
But a lot of humans aren’t morons.
But as a whole.
Oh fuck yes we are.
Absolutely right. Much respect towards him, for sure.
I wonder how much he was paid for these speeches. It sounds like someone trying to make an extra buck off of a disaster.
@@rubiconnn He was likely unpaid for the ASCE Forensic Engineering Congress talk he gave as speakers at most receive free entry to the event. As for the university lectures it's likely that at most he received expenses (he was retired when he gave the talks and none of the talks were at commercial events) but you could always check that rather than looking like a complete dick.
You spend your life working hard to design beautiful and useful things, then you screw up and people die. In this day it would be everyone for themselves in a CYA scramble. That Jack felt guilty for the mistake and felt himself to be better than that, and to atone for it in a constructive way, says a lot for him and other genuine people in the trade. Mistakes can happen, but when lives are on the line you damn well better triple-check everything you can. It might just make a difference.
One of the goals of civil engineers and architects is to never become a classroom example.
That runs true with most things! I rehabber for a Job I used to work at having a training video telling you to not put your hand in the fryer, because someone had done that before!
@@PlainlyDifficult ouch!
@@PlainlyDifficult Or to not stick a utensil into the toaster...or put baby into the microwave...
As someone that works in the architectural design industry, and that went through an incident where a steel fabricator failed on their end, I am chilled by this video. Thankfully our building wasn't even near completion by the time the issue presented itself, but it set forth quite a lot of engineering re-calculations, insurance companies assessing the engineering and financial damages, and so on; It was a real mess. No one got hurt as construction halted until it could be refabricated, I am so glad the issue was apparent before it went any further.
@@K-Riz314 - Well I've never stuck a utensil into a toaster... a knife, yes, almost always, but never a utensil.
I remember this being the first case study in my engineering classes. What a tragic event. It's a very good study of engineering and how a simple change can cause devastating effects.
both designs are stupid and unsafe. one the original deisgn only a single nut holds each floor at each corner. and only a single rod at each corner holds all the floors. combined with metal fatigue= collapse
Yeah, it's called don't let a Fabricator make decisions that requires an engineering degree.
I'm just amazed that so many people involved in the design and construction failed to realize that doubling the load on the nuts would be a problem.
The term 'safety regulations are written in blood' rings particularly true here.
Brill vid as ever, sir. Would like to see you, if you haven't already, cover the likes of Ronan Point & Grenfell Tower here in the UK, both of which are in the same ballpark as the Hyatt Regency, in terms of lax regulations, cost-cutting and lack of oversight coming home to roost with horrific consequences.
Not a bad shout! Thank you
And yet it's not entirely true is it? The good regulations certainly are (let's not pretend that's all of them), but how many of those are also written in an way that stagnates the development of newer ways of doing things that are not actually dangerous? It's not an insignificant barrier to get those changed to move to something that would be even safer.
Regulations, lax or strict, are only as meaningful as their enforcement and the intentions of those doing the enforcement. Similarly with oversight and cost cutting. It's tempting to say "X is the solution to all potential problems if only we could do it right," but that rather ignores the last half of the statement. Systems are only ever as good as their implementation.
@@farmerboy916 I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make or how it supports your premise that “safety regulations are (not) written in blood”. The phrase means: usually people don’t take safety seriously until after someone gets hurt, maimed, or killed. Then there’s the all-too-predictable reaction: “How could this happen? Why didn’t somebody do something about this sooner?!”
When inevitably, people will frequently ignore safety rules, thinking they’re “only to protect idiots from themselves” and feeling superior, or that it’s “just for the lawyers”, or thinking it’ll never happen to them, or thinking “I’ve always done it this way and never had a problem.” as if that’s any predictor of the chance of an occurrence.
The crux of the problem is that accidents are generally not precisely predictable, so quickly we fall into a false sense of security, as nothing bad appears to be happening, so we conclude therefore everything must be A-OK.
I’ve had a serious interest in disasters and catastrophic failures for decades, and what “safety regulations are written in blood” means to me is: the reason for a safety rule may not be obvious, and it may seem utterly needless. But it’s generally in your own best interest to follow them, whether you understand their origin or not.
Is that the high rise condo tower where an entire corner pancaked like 10 floors onto each other? If so that was one of the strangest collapses I’ve ever seen, not just the fact it was so precisely limited to just the units in one corner, but also the fact it arbitrarily stopped pancaking after perhaps 10 floors. I can’t think of another skyscraper pancaking collapse that just ceased, leaving dozens of floors beneath unharmed.
In Canada, engineers are gifted literal iron rings to wear that are reminder of what’s at stake.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring?wprov=sfti1
"He had his leg amputated with a chainsaw."
OK, I'm out.
Fun fact:
Chainsaws were originally invented to widen the pelvis by removing bone when a baby couldn't fit its head through.
So a chainsaw amputation suddenly seems quite nice in comparison.
@@BigYabai I actually knew this and wished I’d never knew it
Whole mood ngl
Vroom vroom
Is that where inspiration to the movie came from?
The best description I've heard of the difference between the original and revised walkway designs is two people hanging onto a rope versus one person hanging onto a rope and a second person hanging onto the first person's legs.
I don’t know, that first one still sounds a bit distressing. lol
Nicole Wren The stress on the first person's hands would be much different.
Thanks!!! 😃 I have watched so many videos about this disaster over the years, and I still never quite understood it until now that you make this analogy. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
That's exactly right. The revised system was barely able to hold up its own weight, add a hundred people standing on it and disaster was inevitable.
That's a great way of illustrating how the force distribution changes with that design change. The ceiling the rope is attached to takes the same amount of weight in both cases, but the 4th floor walkway (the person on top on the rope) isn't strong enough to hold the weight of the walkway below it (the second person on the rope).
It's just fascinating how a change that intuitively seems innocuous actually COMPLETELY upended the design
Engineering seems like that. I'm not an engineer but I do love learning about disasters, part of it just curiosity but part of it is fascinating because of exactly what you said, such a small seemingly insignificant thing can change absolutely everything to disastrous consequences.
There was one, although there's no doubt in many, major aviation accident with the loss of all lives after the tiniest change was made that affected the strength of the aircraft on a commercial liner. It was absolutely insignificant seeming change, but it puts stress in the new design or modification in locations where stress was not originally anticipated by engineers. It took decades but finally disaster hit. Absolutely horrific. But that's also why it's interesting I'm afraid.
Because reducing the load support capacity by half is just an insignificant little oversight.
It should have been engineering 101, from what I saw. Any anyone could have or should have looked UP to see it at any point. It wasn't hiding.
0:46 - "Almost to the day after its completion" - I think "a year" was missing from the statement.
I caught that too. Part of the reason there were so many casualties and fatalities was because, in the year since it opened, it had become an incredibly popular place to host events like dancing, music, etc. This was one of the regular events,
Also, I think the illustration at 6:31 is upside down.
Aaaahh that's why the sentence didn't make sense. I thought i misheard.
I went back and listened to it twice to try and figure out what he meant, lol. Thought I was missing something.
"One year after completion a Kansas" ... would have been much clearer.
Local history for me! My grandparents were supposed to go to that fatal tea dance but they decided not to
My mom as well. That was years before I was born so that could of had some effect on my existence.
There is a recreation based video made by some documentary company and the content is pretty, well... harrowing.
I can't even imagine what it would actually be like.
I'm glad that both of your families survived this odd turn of events in not wanting to go and it's a shame we can't say the same to the 100+ people who didn't make it out that day.
I've been to this hotel many times and clearly remember hearing about it on the news as we were returning home from a vacation.
PD - you might want to consider a video on the 1988 quarry explosion that killed 6 kc firefighters. It is a tragic event that deserves to be remembered.
I graduated in 1980 and lost one of my schoolteachers that night. Mr. Decruff....R.I.P.
@@kcgunesq I was getting ready for work that morning when my house rumbled from the explosion. I live five miles away from where it happened. That's how strong it was.
I literally just watched the Seconds From Disaster episode of this about two hours ago.
i watched it on seconds from disaster a few years ago, good documentary's SFD do (not as good as plainly difficult though)
I've seen that on a Tom Scott guest video years ago. :-D But Johnny here went into more detail.
But this is a lot more chill and informative than TV shows. This is not made like an action movie thankfully
i really liked that episode and the one about the gas explosion inside a sewer line in mexico.
Where are you watching Seconds From Disaster? I haven’t seen that on TV in almost 15 years.
On site amputation with a chainsaw. I know that's a deeply traumatic and life chaning event for everyone involved, but you just know the doctor who did that was telling stories about it for the rest of their career.
I hope the patient got a lot of morphine before that... 😳
@@5roundsrapid263 Probably a lot less than they'd like. Morphine causes a sudden drop in blood pressure so it's used very sparingly where massive blood loss is a factor.
@@fix0the0spade if you are lucky your brain is overwhelmed and you don't feel much out of shock.
if you are not that lucky. May god have mercy on your soul.
I recall reading that there were a few instances of that kind of thing happening, and it was done to save trapped people from drowning in the water that was flooding the area from the broken sprinklers.
@@JanxAngel Jesus just let them drown, it's a lot less painful and you're probably going to die anyway if someone cuts through multiple major arteries with a tool that _rips_ stringy and soft material rather than cuts it.
I swear to god people who willingly become fire fighter’s and medical workers are the finest humans on earth. They are on another level, to have to go through what they see is insane
I'd be a firefighter.
I saw Fascinating Horror's video in this exact incident. while well done, they didn't demonstrate as well as you did *exactly* how the collapse happened. they described it accurately, but did not *show* what went wrong. well done sir
Thank you I really appreciate it!
My mom's friend died in this. About the time I was born. Glad to see it explained, I really didn't know how it was based on the descriptions I had.
Absolutely horrific tragedy in every way. I can not imagine how terrifying that had to have been to experience for not only the victims and survivors, but those who were involved with the aftermath. Your placement on the disaster scale was spot on.
I spent a year on a work assignment in Kansas City in 2013 and it was definitely still in the community's consciousness even after thirty-odd years....
I hold an associates degree in both architectural and mechanical design and not only was this something we learned about in my architectural class, but was also something we formulated with in our stress and strengths class.
The first illustration of those walkways really brought me back. We did many calculations and talked about this and the overall importance of doing the job *right* many, many times.
Great video
“This still remains the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure in American history”
*cries in Surfside*
so sad :( may god rest all their souls.
I thought the death toll for the Champlain towers collapse is 97? This one is 114.
@@SarahRN816 oh really? I didn’t know they determined the death toll yet. Last I heard there were 150+ individuals unaccounted for.
@@sine-spike I’m pretty sure everyone is accounted for at this point!
@@sine-spike It's sad there are a few at least still missing because nobody cared enough to file a missing person's report.
I worked as a consulting engineer, and this is a classic case of a change order that was just signed off on, without any investigation. Used to get them ALL the time during jobs that were under construction, and very much hated having to spend my morning sifting through and marking up 100's of pages of change orders from contractors, but that was what was required to avoid nasty surprises down the road. Most of them meant well, but would often miss the design intent. But there was some scumbaggery as well, with them trying to substitute everything but the electric service from the utility to cut cost as much as possible. On some of those, I would reject them outright, and make them purchase what was outlined on the finished plans, or at least have them call and explain themselves.
I’d likely die of a heart attack if i was told a limb was being amputated with a chainsaw
My response? "The hell you say! Get a damned axe, that'll be faster at least!"
Sounds like it'd make for an awesome story to me, maybe grow a pair?
@Shadow Otter - Thought the same damn thing. Spent 10yrs as a volunteer/paid-on-call Level 3 Fighter in Northern Illinois and was thinking the Hurst tool/aka: the-jaws-of-life, an axe or even a hack-saw (after a shot of morphine) would have been a 1000x better than taking someone’s leg with a damn chainsaw. I’m hoping that story isn’t true/is just an urban legend that got spread via the bs rumor mill.
@@__WJK__ He/she was probably bleeding out anyway or some such.
I thought that's how chain saws first came about - for amputations
The views of the damaged beams have finally helped me understand what happened here. Other "documentaries" I have seen over the year were not so clear. Bravo.
As always an amazingly put together video, and an interesting subject - deeply saddening that a 'simple' change for convenience could have such an impact, truly a cautionary tale. But, kudos to the designer who lectured about the mistake. It must have hurt him every time, but, you wonder how many lives he may have saved. Thank you again for thought-provoking videos and the amount of effort you put into them.
Dangerous nuclear waste: I am deadly.
Walkway: Hold my beer.
Walkway, one time fling. Nuclear waste, a toxic ex that won't let go.
Fabricator: **holds more beers than the design specified as safe**
Dangerous nuclear waste: I aint holding shit 😠....I sling shit all over the place with such speeds I kill all living things near me. Stay the fuck outta my radius for a long time, bitch.
Walkway: Jesus Christ, chill...😬
wow so original
as a person living in Kansas city this disaster is still in the consciousness of the city
No it isn't
Even thought there's plenty of building disasters out there that teach you to never cutting around corners, there's someone who will just ignore all these stuff and ignore it with the believe that "it won't happen to me".
Unfortunately it’s very true
This wasn’t about cutting corners.
This was about problems with process.
The original design was too difficult to build. Somebody made a drawing of their suggestion of how to make it easier. This unapproved suggestion somehow got built without anybody ever analyzing it.
That's the entire state of Oklahoma.
I passed under a sagging highway bridge with plywood bolted to the underside to keep the concrete from falling on the road i was driving on just yesterday xD
@@HamburgerAmy
Well that’s a situation where you certainly need an engineer. To decide if the falling concrete is a danger to the people under the bridge. Or the people on top of the bridge. And some bridges the concrete supports the bridge on others it’s the steel girders.
@@neilkurzman4907 that's why you pay experts. I'm not an engineer, but I'm smart enough to know I'm not an engineer. Meaning, if I'm not absolutely certain about something, which is going to be the case when it involves anything being structurally sound or not, I'm not going to assume it's probably okay or it's probably good enough to do some remediation. When it comes to something like a bridge, you better get experts on it. Even bridges with engineers involved in modern days have failed, so it still is possible to go wrong even with expert help. mistakes are made. But you better give it every chance possible to do it right, life is depend on it. And yet just like was said, someone who has no business making the decision and someone who doesn't know any better says, "good enough," and that's how the situation is dealt with. It's amazing how much trust we put on people to have done their jobs and to be ethical, and redundancies in place in case any system May fail whenever possible. It's really amazing that bad things don't happen more often. But most times when it does go wrong, you can find later why it went wrong and hopefully prevent it in the future. Until that person comes around and says, that happened to them, it'll never happen again.
Reminds me of when I worked at a facility where I was an assistant safety manager. Safety was greatly improved in many different areas over time after some hard work and lots of meetings and motivating people that the safe way was the best way to go. So I can only imagine the look on my face when I was told that they were cutting our budget because things were so much safer now, they didn't need a safety department to speak of, because loss and injuries were so far down....I don't have words to describe what I feel about that MBA executive's thought process
This is still taught in engineering classes today. I believe we covered this in my statics course as a cautionary tale. I believe part of the consideration for the design change was in large part due to the cost of having one long threaded rod versus the two shorter end threaded rods. Threaded rods are damned expensive by comparison.
I didn't know the builder went on to lecture about what was probably the worst mistake of his life...wow. That's real integrity.
I remember hearing about this one in college, it's kind of a well known case. Fascinating "little" mistake.
I'm glad you covered this. I live in Columbia, MO, just about 120 miles away from Kansas City. The first time I heard about the worst disaster in the state's history was in a book about disasters I read in 5th grade. The first and only time it was taught to me was my robotics class in 10th grade. I guess nobody in the school district ever heard the quote "those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it".
My wife and I stayed at this hotel and she had no clue, even after I pointed it out and said "I'm not walking over those"
Did you stay there before the collapse?
@@GregN456 I certainly hope so as walking across them after they fell wouldn't have been nice for those underneath.
@@almilhouse9059 well I mean, did he stay at the hotel prior to the collapse or after it was renovated. Just for curiosity's sake!
@Kenneth Stark - Sure makes one think twice when seeing similar walkway designs. And Just think of the 10s of millions of ppl who trust current/similar designs that could maybe be nearing failure(?) I will never look at suspended walk ways the same way, that’s for sure.
@@__WJK__ Take a look at the "grades" on all the bridges you drive over regularly. Scary stuff.
I lived in Kansas City at the time this occurred. I worked for an insurance company and, on the Monday following this disaster, my department received a letter from an attorney who represented my company and had been killed in the incident. It was extremely eerie.
As a newly minted engineer at the time, I was acutely aware of this event due to coverage in professional journals and discussions with colleagues. While the original design was sufficient to carry the load on July 17, 1981 it did not meet code and no one had actually done calculations on the design. The engineering company sent the design as a "concept" to the fabricator with the assumption that the fabricator would do the calculations. It was a case of extreme negligence on the part of the responsible engineer who didn't recognize that the original design really couldn't reasonably be assembled and didn't do the calculations for the design that he signed-off on. He was the sole Registered Professional Engineer working on ten of the projects of similar scale for his company.
The nuts were NOT the issue. The nut at the top of the upper rod had exactly the same load on it as at the bottom of the rod, and it was the same as the original design, and they didn't fail. The failure was correctly described up to 3:33, but it goes off track in the discussion of the nut, it was the load the nut placed on the fabricated beam that was the problem, the nuts were NOT the source of failure, they pulled through the beams. Nuts don't fail in any designed bolted connection, the nuts are made of material that is stronger than the bolt/stud/rod and the length of engagement is sufficient that the threads don't strip and the bolt/stud/rod will break in tensile failure, they are literally designed to be able to pull the bolt/stud/rod apart before they could fail. A change in the design of the beams would have made the structure as strong as the original design and it still wouldn't have met the city's design code.
"something you always thought was safe may not actually be that safe" 10 out of 10 insightfulness
I live in KC, and people still talk about this like it happened yesterday.....
"alright you kids, you better go to sleep before two hanging walkways collapse on you!~"
@@DxBlack I’m dead bro 🤣
Just like them 114 people
Oh shit! It’s the comment police! Hide your dark humor and run!
It's scary stuff...
A good video. My father-in-law's high school reunion was at that tea dance. He didn't feel well so he and my mother-in-law did not go to the dance, for which we were all grateful!
Potentially lucky turn of events. Makes a person wonder if anyone that did attend the reunion was unfortunately affected(?) I surely hope not!
I was gonna say, as an engineering firm what do you do after that? Especially if you're the owner. Using your experience as a cautionary tale is a great way to help others
@Nathan Ouellette - Very true. Incidentally, it surprises me criminal negligence was not found. For the defendants in this case, hearing the jury return such a verdict, has got be the absolute best thing one could ever hear.
@@__WJK__ well the engineers did nothing wrong, it was the fabricators that did
Jack Gollum, the lead designer, felt horrible guilt for the rest of his life and dedicated his remaining life to lecturing architecture students. He said he "wanted to scare the daylights out of them" to try and prevent something like this from ever happening again.
This event, and with his encouragement, changed the laws and guidelines in architecture and construction, so they did everything they could to bring a sliver of good from this horrible event.
With regards to charges, for some reason engineering disasters rarely end up with those responsible serving much punishment. If they go to jail at all they usually seem to only serve a tiny portion of their sentence, but usually the charges are dropped or acquitted and they pay the victims and their families.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding this case:
The Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and Land Surveyors found the engineers at Jack D. Gillum and Associates who had approved the final drawings to be culpable of gross negligence, misconduct, and unprofessional conduct in the practice of engineering. They were acquitted of all the crimes with which they were initially charged, but the company lost its engineering licenses in the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, as well as its membership with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
@@__WJK__ the defendant would be the one responsible who is trying to prove themselves innocent. In this case the defendant would be the architecture firm.
Love your channel! I really appreciate you saying the number on the disaster scale out loud - my vision isn't the best so hearing it as well really helps. Great work!
This hotel is about 20 min from my house, I see it often while going to downtown Kansas city, I've always wanted to go into the revolving deck on it
For the very first time on Plainly Difficult, this is a disaster that I knew about and which subsequently piqued my interest in failure analysis. Nice job!
One newspaper headline screamed: 'Did they care enough to build the very best?' A take off on the Hallmark motto at the time with regard to their greeting cards: 'Did you care enough to send the very best?' A waggish comment, but spot on, at the time.
This was one of the first things my professor taught in my statics class. It was scary enlightening how much it put into perspective how such a seemingly simple design change can lead to cataclysmic effects.
Amazing lack of thought in this change.. this is exactly why RISK analysis exists.
"this is exactly why RISK analysis exists."
Well, yeah, but you're not thinking of that large a process for small changes like cutting a bar in half, before or after the change...he does go over this at the beginning of the video, and it's probably why they were not deemed culpable (it was too tiny a mistake, not a colossal clusterfuck like using a screwdriver to hold a nuclear test apparatus open).
My parents were both there at the tea dance. My dad's best friend and lawyer went to get a drink at the bar, which was located under one of the sky walks, when the collapse happened. Nine times out of ten my dad would have gone with him, but this time he didn't. My dad, who is a physician had to identify him, but he was only able to do so by the clothes he was wearing. His name was Sam Cottingham, and he was a wonderful person. When my parents had friends over, he would be the guy who would play with the kids, as was the case with me. Such a sad ending to a nice man. My parents were lucky that night, but my father suffered depression for a long while, following this tragedy.
i seem to recall practical engineering did a deeper dive into the physics behind this. Thanks for the video, Mr Difficult =)
I've been waiting for you to cover this! Thank you for another amazing video!
Glad you enjoy it!
I rate this video a 10 on the Plainly Difficult Viewer's Scale. ❤
Thank you
But is that a patented scale?
@@imaplant2868 It’s a pay-tented scale indeed ;)
The designer who went on to give classroom presentations about what went wrong is honorable. Imagine how difficult it would be to face that trauma, to help future engineers avoid making the same mistake.
I definitely liked this video! I've seen videos on the Collapse before, but yours is the first that explains the point of failure clearly enough for me to follow the details.
I want to know more about this chainsaw amputation, however. Was it someone who was trapped under wreckage? Was the doctor just at the party, first responders aren't normally full fledged doctors, and where the hell did the chainsaw come from!? Inquiring minds!
Don’t remember why the doctor was at hand, but I seem to remember there was construction nearby, which was why they were able to get equipment there so quickly. Not only the chainsaw, but they bobcat they broke down the doors with.
@@JosieJOK Aha! Thanks, that helps quite a bit (the presence of the chainsaw really threw me off, but from a construction site makes sense)
This tragedy is always with us here in KC. 20 years later I stepped inside and you can still feel the pain of what happened. Rather creepy to this day.
I'm not sure if you've done this, but it might be interesting to see you do a video on the Silver Bridge collapse.
At first I was excited about you talking about my hometown, but then I remembered how horrible this was. Another accident that happen here was a major explosion at a construction site that killed firefighters back in 88/89
Remembering this disaster as I lost a teacher, Mr. Decruff that night. Visiting this disaster in light of the disaster in Florida where an entire section of a condo collapsed.
Great video as per usual! Intro, history, context and cogent analysis all well done! Thanks P D!
Ah, the 70's. Build it Beautiful, Weak, Flammable and CHEAP!!!
So I guess not a whole lot has changed then.
To be fair the big exception is that (in the US at least, others have to give information about their countries) fire codes have greatly improved for commercial and government buildings. Single occupancy homes are cheaper and pre-assembled more and more, held together with glue and gussett plates, so fire does spread incredibly quickly. they can be incredibly strong under normal conditions, but under fire conditions fail very easily. But in an imperfect world, with builders themselves often actually on fire code committees, fire safety at least has really has come a long way, at least in commercial structures here.
Although fire inspections are another key part of that, and don't occur in most residences but do occur usually in commercial buildings. And people have this incredible tendency to circumvent fire safety measures through incredible means. Engineers often do their jobs, for some random employee to completely disable the firewall or remove fire resistance to part of a structure just by being careless or trying to make their job easier. But engineers at least are doing their part.
@@toddabowden Eh, fire safety has come a long way in private homes too. At least in some ways; now that we have fire blocking and non-flammable insulation and drywall in current frame built homes. The bigger problem are all the synthetics and tinder that go inside the house as furnishing, that go up quicker than old wood furniture/ hardwood floors and produce way worse smoke.
@@farmerboy916 Thought most furnishings such as mattresses are pumped full of fire retardants considering a string of cigarette related deaths in decades past?
@@Aquatarkus96 More about composites replacing solid woods, heavy use of thin plastics and plastic cloth instead of wool, etc.
@@farmerboy916 That sounds like it would be safer, less fuel for a fire and all that? I'd say the massive reduction of paper in most households along with falling smoking rates and improvements to electrical codes would make them far safer than any given home in the 70s
You keep RUclips worth watching, keep it up! Every video is pure gold!
Glad you like them!
This was a well researched and documented video. It must have taken a lot of tedious work to put it together.
Thank you!
Hey, I just looked at this because they mentioned it while talking about the condo collapse in Florida. It being one of the top deadliest. I remember it happening, I was 18 and graduating high school. Newspapers and TV LOL! No instant internet. Anyways, I like how you show in great detail that the nut is holding the weight of the walkways etc. One tiny little nut! (Really more than one, but it shows the design flaw) very good explanation and you can tell it is a weak point! Thanks!
My in-laws were emts in kc at the time. Scariest day of their career.
There were no EMTs there.
I remember when this happened and asking “how?” Thank you for answering that question 40 years later.
Plainly difficult: AKA The Nuclear and structural mishaps and disasters channel
I think it's very important for people to remember the mistakes of the past, specially when they caused such a great loss of life, instead of trying to make everyone forget about them so the reputation of the people responsible doesn't suffer the consequences.
That's why I find channels like Plainly Difficult and Fascinating Horror so important, they help us remember, they tell the stories of tragedies that should not be forgotten and should never happen again.
Fascinating video. Only comment would be that whilst putting the archive footage on the virtual TV set is cute, it makes it really small and hard to see when viewing on mobile.
It's not for cute, it's to avoid copyright.
Since we're doing building disasters now, can you do the MGM Grand fire in the future?
Maybe! Thanks for the suggestion!!
@Plainly Difficult I have a couple if you don't mind.
1. Cocoanut Grove fire.
2. Oppau BASF Factory explosion.
Good luck and thanks for the ongoing content. 🙂👍
Beverly Hills Supper Club fire, too.
Might as well hit both of the Vegas fires... Weren't they just a year apart?
If you’re into fire disasters, you could also consider to cover the Backa fire in Gothenburg, Sweden, where arsonists killed 63 young people when setting fire to a discotheque. This is one of the most traumatic events in Sweden as so many young people died, almost overshadowing the Estonia catastrophe.
The fire on the ferry Scandinavian Star, 1990, that ran between Norway and Denmark is another major catastrophe in our neighbourhood
Brilliant! Brightened up a dull Saturday with disaster!
Keep up the good work fella and stay safe.
Thank you!
This is so weird! I was just thinking about the Hyatt Regency disaster the other day when some dormant brain cell, that had been asleep since engineering school, suddenly woke up! Great Video as usual!! Cheers! 😜
I myself was there that day. I was being honored for saving children from a fire…. When this happened. I saved as many as I could so I was still a hero
what are all these video poping up rapidly..i love it ;)
I’m making space on my hard drive
@@PlainlyDifficult make more space then 😂😂
We love this
I haven’t been able to watch as soon as they are released as per normal- work, children, and all that jazz. However I am still a proud Plainly Diifi-Cult member. On that note this is unsurprisingly another excellent production by John.
Something about it always bugged me, and it was the safety factor. It failed at double the load which means that the safety factor was under 2, which seems real low when we’re talking about suspended walkways.
Not that it would have helped any, but still...
Even the original design failed to meet the city’s building code for the load capacity.
Excellent Job, excellent work on the video overall. Structural disasters via Human Error are rare in America but they do happen. Seconds from Disaster had an episode on this disaster. I'm waiting for a video upload on the Miami Condo collapses documentary that killed 98 people. R.I.P.
I’m glad to live in Chile, a land of earthquakes, so every construction is earthquake proof. We had a huge one 10 years ago and nothing happened to the buildings.
I used to live in Miami Beach so since the Miami disaster I’m kind of afraid of collapsing buildings 😰 haha
Nothing is earthquake proof. In this world No ship is unsinkable, or no building is earthquake proof.
@@scottishroad_pinoy9084 well ofc but you’d need a 9+ magnitude earthquake to do severe damage to a building made to resist earthquakes
@@scottishroad_pinoy9084if it were like that we would have no building standing by now
@@scottishroad_pinoy9084 THeyre also called earthquake resistant if you want a name to take that into account. Earthquake resistant buildings arent perfect for sure but theyre constructed in a way that makes collapse a whole lot less likely. Life saving
I remembered this disaster. And I remember the design change effect the disaster. What I did not remember was who made the change, although I do recall it was done during the building stage.
Very well done.
Jack gillum haphazardly signed off on the change to save a few bucks.
I just read the date stamp (MMXXI) and my brain immediately went "Wait, that cannot possibly be right... Oh... F...! it IS 2021..."
We are living in days such as these days that will in the future effect you in the future
From a full-length documentary I watched on this disaster, the hotel’s water pipes broke in the collapse causing uncontrollable flooding, and I recall a significant number of the deaths were actually drownings from trapped victims who couldn’t be rescued in time. I’m pretty sure they had footage of some of the victims being rescued (unless I’m confusing this with that 3rd world (Bangladesh perhaps?) clothing factory that was like 9 stories high, 3 additional stories constructed higher than authorized, where the rooftop generators ultimately caused vibrations that made the entire structure collapse. Now that’s truly a devastating one, I think a LOT more people died in that, possibly 500. It was around 2003 or so.)
I was a high school freshman living in Missouri when the collapse happened. I remember initial news reports speculating that the crowd had caused the collapse because they were swaying to the music on the walkways.
Who is here since the collapse in miami?
I remember when this happened, what a horrible time it was for so many people. The book "Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail" by Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori is a great and informative read, I would bet a number of your viewers already know it. Keep up the great videos.
Also, the recent Florida condo collapse may have topped this as the worst non intentional structural disaster in the US.
thank you for your content man! Your vids are really bingeable and have so much rewatch value, learning about all these things really expands my knowledge by a ton!
Just follow the design! This is what happens when people can't read directions and plans. I work in construction and you have to check and double check what is going on.
And what happens when you are given a design that you can’t actually build?
@@neilkurzman4907 you would have to figure out a way to get the threads through the platforms as designed or redesign the box end and nut/washer to carry double the load.
@@bartfoster1311
That’s exactly what happened the contractor couldn’t build it as designed and said can I do this instead. No engineer and reviewed it and said no this will fail, but if we do this it will work.
The engineering lessons to be learned here. First make sure your design can actually be built. And make sure all changes are properly reviewed.
@@bartfoster1311 - Yeah, if only those boxed beams/square beams would have been continuous vs having had welded seems, the walkway may not have failed, or failed as catastrophically.
@@__WJK__ All box beams/HSS have a welded seam. This is a classic case of architects and engineers designing something with zero thought about manufacturability. The weld in the tube likely wouldn’t have been an issue had it been loaded as designed, however it couldn’t be built as designed, the fabricator suggested the easiest fix they could think of, and nobody from the engineering firm bothered to re-run the calculations. Has they instead used a coupler nut or increased the size of the threaded rods and plated the beam to increase its strength they may have avoided this entire situation.
Thanks for saying the number. It really helps when for those who can't see the screen at the time.
This is crazy god bless them!!! I was actually born July 17, 1981 in Kansas City! This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about this collapse at Hyatt Regency!! I can’t believe I never heard anything about this!! I’ll be 40 this month!!😳🤡.
Wow, your birth may have saved your parents' lives, since they were at the hospital and couldn't party at the hotel.
For any of you that are interested, there's also a seconds from disaster episode on this. It covers the disaster in more detail. Just look up "Seconds from Disaster skywalk collapse"
I use this collapse as an example of missing the details. Think of a rope hanging from the ceiling. The as designed would have 2 people each grabbing onto the rope. The as built had the upper person holding onto the rope and the bottom person holding onto their ankles. Also, think of the designs that have used up most of the safety margin but are stable, until a modification is made years later causing the system to fail.
Great way of putting it!
At one point in time one of Jack Gillam's power point presentations about the collapse was available on line.
It was very interesting.
It was shocking to see actual footage of the atrium. Can't imagine what it would have been like during the collapse
A dad in my scout troop was a beat cop on duty when this happened; he talked about how he ran in there with his little duty first aid kit and just stopped in his tracks. I can't say for sure but I'm pretty sure he was re-living that moment right then and I can't even begin to imagine how he felt or feels.
I’m watching this after the surfside florida building collapse
Good video as always. Tom Scott had a guest video about this topic but yours goes more indepth.
"It still remains the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure in American history"
The way things seem with the Champlain Towers collapse, this horrible record is increasingly seeming to be broken. A horrible disaster which will probably take years to understand why it happened. I look forward to a short documentary about the Champlain Towers collapse when all the details are figured out.
Oh it won't take years, we already know who is at fault and why.
The hotel collapse here still holds the record 114 dead where as the condo collapse is 97 dead with 11 missing. Not that it a record KC ever wanted to have. But in factual terms that record is not broken. And there are lots of mini documentary out on Surfside already. But the official report may take some time you are right.
I remember studying this incident in college. It was used as an example of how small changes in designs can have major and sometimes catastrophic consequences. Also served as a warning that seemingly small mistakes in designs could in fact kill people.
"But it's cheaper this way."
this one gets me because the physics at work here is so obvious, it's incredible it could be missed as all.
3:05 More like "No way in hell am I payin' my guys to thread nuts and washers onto a continuous length of all-thread for _literal days_ on end!"
I can't help but think that if the rods were forged with the threaded sections a larger diameter, the nuts would just slide up to the section where they're threaded, the narrower sections being smaller than the minor thread diameter. I also think that hanging steel cables could have been done cheaper again.
@@carneeki Yeah why didn't they just use cables?
@@Misha-dr9rh beats me... It's the obvious choice.
Great video. I’d like to see one of the wreck of the “Congressional” train in Philadelphia on Labor Day 1943. My grandfather was a PRR track supervisor and had to clear up the wreck.
“Hey what’s Missouri famous for?”
“This”
“... give it to Kansas.”
hey man saint louis is pretty popular
not true ... we're also famous for the joplin tornado... and the times beach disaster...
Here's a fun fact I can tell you as a Kansas City native, Kemper Arena is also here in town, so I guess were just great at making buildings that don't want to stay up. Also my parents were invited to that tea dance by some church friends but decided that morning not to go. Weird to think how my life might have turned out if they had gone. I might not even exist since this was about 4 years before I was even born! Sometimes it really is just one decision that can change everything you know what I mean?
Do the New London school disaster! Love your work Plainly!
I have much original documentation of the explosion, period newspapers and such if it could assist research.
Thank you
I was born and raised in Kansas City and still live in SW Missouri. I remember when this happened. We watched a lot of this unfold. It was just devestating. Since then, I avoid glass walkways and if I have to walk across I do it quickly. Seriously. I'm afraid of heights anyway and this disaster just made it worse. Side note: Not that it really matters but my sister dated one of the brothers that owned the company that put in all of the windows in that hotel.
This was the first engineering disaster I ever heard of and morbid and scientific curiosity followed.
In Canada, the Quebec Bridge collapse of 1907 often comes to mind for engineering catastrophe. But this one in kc is simply simple it makes it ominous.
My Aunt and her friend were there the day of the collapse. My Aunt surrived but sadly, her friend standing just behind her did not.