Davenport IA | PARTIAL BUILDING COLLAPSE | ROOT CAUSE
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- Опубликовано: 30 май 2023
- An 84 apartment building partially collapsed on May 28, 2023 in Davenport Iowa at 4:55pm. This video explains the likely root cause.
The structure was hybrid brick and steel and this played a part in the collapse. The outer brick wall gave way dragging down the steel floor beams.
Thanks to Randy Heggen for use of his drone footage. • Building collapse Dave... 
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Mr. Bell - thank you for the in-depth explanation. I live in Davenport and many people are upset by the lack of information regarding the incident.
Thanks John
I am glad to share my knowledge and to try make it less scary, by giving you a better understanding.
The more I find out, I see that this building was yelling its distress and the owner, the city and the engineers chose to ignore the many glaring red flags. And they dismissed those pointing out the obvious. Buildings especially old ones need love and care, they can't fix themselves. This is criminal.
Because it’s all cover up
@@Mike-Bell Mike, video of the collapse is now online. Looking forward to your followup analysis!
Thanks I'm busy extracting all useful pieces of information and clues from the video.
I also live in Davenpothole. The city's neglect and their typical pro-business attitude helps explain why city inspections repeatedly missed the problem.
Very helpful, Mike. Thanks for your quick work.
There are many buildings of similar vintage and construction in the Midwestern US river cities. Thanks to the rivers, there was easy barge access to brick from my home town of St. Louis, MO, where there are massive clay deposits. As you point out, although the brick walls at the bottom were about five wythes thick, only the outer wythe was made of kiln-hardened brick. The interior layers were all made of a cheaper, softer brick (we call it “inside brick”) that cannot survive exposure to weather or water. Poor maintenance over the years would literally have allowed water to melt those inside bricks, so the pockets that held the steel structural members would have begun to give way, allowing the floors to sag until the beams actually fell. I read that they were doing structural work, and if that is true then they may have failed to shore the building properly.
I am sad that several people may have been lost in this collapse. Unlike the victims at CTS in Florida, this is a group of relatively low income people who will struggle to put their lives back on track.
In other words they are "expendable" from an economic perspective.
The permit for the work on that section of the building was pulled on Wed 24th, no hands on work had been done yet.
This! Over time, the bricks and mortar just dissolve and soften. "The interior layers were all made of a cheaper, softer brick (we call it “inside brick”) that cannot survive exposure to weather or water."
The intersection of the old ballroom wall and the roof of the lower area would have been a leak issue from the start.
There was a new-ish membrane roof you can see flapping at the top, but it was too late.
@@Torthak Apparently work was under way, as per the excellent Quad Cities Times piece, “Contractor said he warned of Davenport building collapse.”
Thank you very much for the good info. Love and Shalome.
I subscribed to you way back in the day when you made a video about the Chernobyl disaster. I again watched your video about the surfside collapse in Miami. You were the first person I thought of when I heard about this happening in Iowa, and I watched this video as soon as I saw you uploaded it. You always have a calm and scientific way of explaining the mechanisms behind these horrific events, and a compassionate tone when referring to the victims. Thank you for shedding light on these structural issues; you always emphasize how these tragedies could be avoided and you always treat these disasters with the utmost respect. Thank you for helping us understand the root cause of disaster: negligence.
Thanks Cassandra. I appreciate your comment and happy to try and demystify and provide explanation for tragic events.
I was downtown at the time of the collapse. It was VERY loud. At first we thought a truck hit the Harrison Street railroad bridge, but saw the cloud of dust toward the library.
Great explanation Mr. Bell. ALSO, the comments here are not so far from the truth. Davenport is corrupt and crumbling from top to bottom.
That must have been so scary to hear and see!
Local here to second you!
👍Davenport resident
It's not half as bad as the Illinois side
Use to live up there and watched Gluba whom owned the land that the Davenport casino was built and made a ton of money. Worked at the JD Davenport plant and watch the company and union screw with workers pay checks and the corruption in production plan CIPP incentive program. Got out from those toxic AHoles. 2 years before I left in 2014 several but not enough UAW "leaders" went to prison for corruption and racketeering. Plenty company folks also needed to go and hopefully will soon.
It occurred because the slumlord did not properly fix the structure, and it does have a basement, in which had water problems and tge foundation compromised. This is an event that could’ve been prevented had the slumlord done proper repairs to the brick instead of veneering over the original brick structure with new brick aboou 3 years ago.
Thanks for the correction. I have removed the statement about it not having a basement.
Before calling a building owner a slum lord do some research, It might save you from a law suit some day.
That being said.
The current owner of the building has only owned the building for 2 YEARS!
The refacing was down under the former owners, was probably done to help sell the building
all about regulations or the lack there of-
Did they veneer or just paint?
The current owner is not the one who could have prevented this. The damage had been slowly accumulating, invisibly behind the walls, from DECADES of neglect.
As the video explains, the outer brick walls support the steel and the steel supports the outer walls and the inner floors and walls.
Those sagging floors and leaking pipes were not a warning something was starting to go wrong, they were symptoms of impending collapse because the ends of the steel beams were not supported any more.
A "proper fix" by the current owner would have involved blasting caps and dynamite, or completely removing and replacing all the outer brick - the full thickness of the wall -
The city is liable for not condemning the building so they want the evidence destroyed before the investigation
Very easy to understand, especially with the drone footage and pre-collapse photos. Thank you.
I appreciate the point you made about style of construction--load bearing brick exterior/steel internal frame. This was not a particularly resilient building system; it requires specialized expertise to maintain. Overwhelmingly today, masonry is a superficial cladding so few tradespeople, engineers, or laypeople are experienced. There's a secondary reason there are so few of this type around today: they were originally cheap to build & built cheaply, with the understanding they would be eventually replaced. This building was likely the third or fourth redevelopment of the site over the previous 60-ish years. In 1907, they did not anticipate the abandonment of central business districts. Class conflict and conspiracy are not necessary to explain the accident.
I AM HERE AT THE BUILDING. THERE ARE 5 PEOPLE STILL MISSING. And nobody is searching for them!! Some of the family members had cell phones pinged, and two of them are definitely pinging here.
And davenport wanted to demolish it immediately! I drove by, and couldn't believe what I was seeing.
what do you mean pinging?
@@ratsun1734 they have their cell phone carrier send out a “ping” that locates the phone
It is tantamount to murder. How many other buildings are there downtown like this? Answer; a lot.
O god. Im so sorry!! They can still be found alive. People were being rescued alive up to 13 days after buildings collapsed in turkey and Syria. This is horrible. Praying for you and everyone there. Keep us updated please. 🙏
The building decay is clearly evident here and I believe the city is going to face a class action lawsuit for looking the other way.
This collapse was not an accident. The collapse was 50 years in the making. Slumlords taking out as much as they can and give nothing back. And a city that looked the other way and did not care about the people. That terrible attitude is in full display right now. Why were they in such a rush to tear down the building at first? A full investigation is needed to get to the bottom of this tragedy. So that others will not have to suffer like this.
Yes, 50+ years of urban decay.
I walk past this building regularly - sometimes on the Main St side, sometimes on the west side where the collapse occurred. Walked past those dumpsters Saturday. Freaky. Makes me think about all the unreinforced masonry buildings in this part of the country and what will happen when the New Madrid fault lets go.
A contractor who has been worried sick about the state of the brick and was warning people to get away. He said when he went past on Saturday there were bricks lying on the ground which had fallen. Did you see the bricks lying on the ground?
Oh, yes.😳 I was in a 4 storey wood Victorian 3rd floor during Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Oakland, CA. Ciuldin swung back and forth, but held. However, everything brick just snapped off. All the chimneys etc. The entire brick facade of the market around the corner just fell into the street. Anyone on the sidewalk would have been killed. Brick in earthquakes just falls apart. I had just been at that store an hour prior. Luckily I was already home at 5:04 pm to watch the baseball World Series. Also, if I hadn't quit my job that day I would have been on the Nimitz freeway that fell. Whew! 😶
Thank you for this video, it was very informative. I live downtown; have walked past this building many times! I can’t believe City Hall is just across the street, in view of the section that collapsed and they never condemned this building. Disgusting
Very interesting video. I'm a long time resident of Davenport and a historic preservation advocate. That being said, I have never been an advocate of these very old commercial buildings being converted to apartment use even though there are many in our downtown. These buildings had structural deficits from day one as pointed out in this video and you add a century+ of remodeling with potential hidden impacts to the structural integrity and additional load like HVAC units on the roof and this is a disaster waiting to happen even before you add to it the maintenance issues. I hope there are lessons learned from this locally and in depth structural evaluations are made of similar structures.
Was a old hotel, with commercial 1st floor.
It's not the only former hotel that has been converted to apartment's in the downtown area.
Yet Davenport gave TIF money to fix up similiar building
But it’s market rated not low income
But Gina, THIS is the problem! In so many of our cities, we become too sentimental about our dear old buildings, so sentimental that our governments tack a "Historic Landmark" sign on them, and then NOBODY can knock them down to make way for newer, stronger, built-to-modern-code structures! Our sentimental nature and our politics are killing us.
It's crazy seeing this first hand! I can't help but think of the people lost and the people who now have absolutely nothing. This is the perfect example of neglect.
Yet the building owner recently built a 2-million modern mansion.
Let's see how long the owner keeps it when the lawsuits pile in.
@@653j521 Oh, he'll keep it. First off, he'll have insurance up the wazoo, secondly, the very first thing he will have done is start hiding assets, and putting non liquid assets in the name of family members. Then he'll declare bankruptcy. Laws aren't made by poor people, but by rich ones. That's why they always protect the rich and screw the poor.
I'm a retired Chartered Civil Engineer so fully appreciate all the amazing work you show and yes tall load bearing brick walls with steel beams mixed in is not something I would make a large opening in especially at ground level!
We're all screaming at the city to ACTUALLY shore up the remaining building with cranes or something and then comb through the rubble. Sitting and watching them do nothing about the rubble for days is driving us crazy. We have the army corps of engineers minutes away from us yet i haven't heard once that we've gotten their, or any real outside eyes on the ground. The city just keeps using other, possibly shady construction companies. City already blamed a computer glitch on them obviously changing the state of the building's passed inspection days before the collapse.
Thank you so much for this video though because as i said, we desperately need outside engineering advice and outside lawyers for the survivors since most local lawyers have a conflict of interest in the case.
The Army COE has no experience with buildings or restoration work. Further they have no jurisdiction over civilian works.
The city is jumping on demolition because their inspectors have let it slide for years.
The state needs to get after these slumlords. They are getting away with too much.
Dosnt help the mayor of Bettendorf is a secret owner
Many city employees are also owners of slum housing
Officials inspected it - the day before. They're not fighting them, they're enabling slumlords.
O my god! Wow. Thats so sad to know they just did cosmetic work on the building. The owner was well aware the building was in need of repairs over the years. Falling bricks onto the sidewalk was more than enough warning years ago. They should use this video in court . 🙏🥀My heart breaks for the people still missing
Owners ... probably a chain of them, doing quick cosmetic fixes and selling it when their tax breaks ran out.
Mayor of Bettendorf is one
Looks like they did a real nice job putting some type of faux coating brick and bright red paint on the outside to hide all that damage tho. Amazing how it went from this 3:20 to a nice smooth tomato red color before collapsing but you can see the damage was still behind the fake crap they hid behind it 1:32. That is why they want to quickly demolish that to get rid of evidence of negligence and slum lord at play. They put all that extra weight on a already weak wall when the building needed to be condemned if they were not planning to reinforce the walls.
Painted brick also traps moisture. So any water that got in those walls stayed there. And with a drain pipe not even connected to the top of the building, it's not a stretch to say there was water getting in the brick. It's a real shame this all was predicable
Thank you Mike for sharing your knowledge
Thanks for sharing. What a nightmare.
Very nice Mike, I love it.
Thanks Randy. Your footage is really helpful. Is there a reason your video is unlisted?
@@Mike-Bell I initially was concerned about being conscious of observing privacy. I can change to public, I dont know if it will do any "harm" so to say....
It has a basement occupied by the building's mechanicals and available tenant storage, according to persons familiar with the building.
My mother retired from the City of Davenport as a branch library director. When she was a reference librarian at the main library across Main St from this building, we would occasionally meet for lunch in a sandwich shop that was in the ground level space of this building, at the corner of Main and 4th.
Much of your analysis isn't far off the mark, but it suffers from a lack of access to first-hand sources and a reliance on internet OSINT.
Thanks for the correction about the basement. I have edited out that statement.
Thank you, Mike.
I live in another city in the Midwest and I can’t help but wonder about numerous older buildings I see that might be constructed similarly-only an engineer would know. My first thought when I see a building approaching 100 years in age is that a fire could spread inside it easily but I don’t think of it collapsing!
Good job! You are the first commenter I have read that explains the outmoded system of attaching the brick wall to the steel support beams. That makes the collapse much easier to understand.
Thanks for putting a video together from and engineer's point of view!
Davenport Iowa is very corrupt. The Landlord is only being fined 300$ and 95$ in court costs. They want to demolish the building so they can get rid of the evidence. I live in the QC.
That is for the FIRST citation, and that's all city codes allow.
There may be others coming.
My complaint to Davenport Alderman Robby Ortiz about the city forcing a locked gate and trespassing on my property remained unanswered after 3 contacts. Civil right suit due.
When stuff like this happens I cant wait for you to post a video, thanks Mike
Great job, Mike.
I lived in this building from April 1997 to October 1998 and at that time the building leaked water. I lived on the 6th floor on the opposite side where the collapse occurred. It was not uncommon to walk out if your apartment and walk down the hallway and find water leaking from the ceiling.
Andrew Wold owned Alliance Contracting LLC, which is who did the structural repair in 2021.
The structural repair passed inspection, despite the inspector noting several things that are missing and still need to be done.
I remember driving down this street every day and wondering what those temporary awnings were for. I thought it was a construction project that just hadn’t started- because I hadn’t seen anyone building anything.
I did hear about the falling bricks, but I have to admit, I thought that was a joke!
Thank you Mr. Bell. Good.
Good work Mike, hope to see more info come out on this and the causes.
This explains a key point. I did not know the exterior brick was structural. The building should never have been approved for reuse in the 1980s. I don’t think that type of construction would have been allowed even then.
I've seen buildings construction in the 80s which had load bearing ways of 3 stories. When I saw them being constructed I wondered whether they were an accident waiting to happen.
Masonry loadbearing walls are not uncommon or disallowed. Reinforcement may be required. This building stood for over 115 years. It is clearly a matter of neglect, lack of maintenance here. Possible addition of reinforced concrete inside the walls in key places to replace the softer interior brick might strengthen the structure, but ongoing neglect would again undermine it.
The point is that it was brick - thousands of tiny pieces of fired clay. There are buildings made of large stones which can stand for hundreds of years without trouble, but a building that tall with a brick structure is an entirely different matter. Then to try to repair it while people are living above! Why would any engineer allow that?
A brick building may easily stand for 500-800 years with proper maintenance. There are Roman buildings like the Pantheon still standing and still in daily use. What you don't do however with load bearing walls is cutting away in its load bearing capacity because then there won't be anything to hold it up anymore which is evident what happened here.
@@ingvarhallstrom2306 The Pantheon is made of Roman concrete, but you're absolutely right about brick standing 2,000 years. The Roman Senate Building - is a red-brick structure. Looks like an 1800's warehouse. When I visited Rome, I was shocked. It looks so ordinary. The Roman concrete buildings are 800x more stable than our modern ones with rebar. They understood iron inside concrete = spalling. (2,000 years before we did!) Roman Surfside Condos - could not have collapsed.
Thanks Mike
Thank you.
I agree with your opinion. Additionally
The modern a/c chiller on the roof should have support legs extended down to the foundation through the building. This modern equipment slightly shakes the building over time reducing structural integrity. But i do see your thoughts being correct to the cause that day.
So true! I wondered about that thing. Reminiscent of 2 collapses in Asia, where roof AC's were the straw that broke the camel's back. 100 year buildings weren't made for AC. Neither were their roofs made strong enough for them on top.
I truly appreciate your channel, your knowledge is always wanted.
Concise and to the point. The steel beams holding up the floors should have been shored up by temporary steel columns while the west wall was repaired, avoiding a structural collapse of the building. Both incompetence and neglect.
Very educational…thank you!
great video! thanks!
Excellent vid
Thank you, this was well done.
Waiting to hear the interview with the woman who moved out. Lucky she did.
Sad historic building in such a state of disrepair, leading to this disaster... Was born in Davenport still in the local area, I may try to go's check out the scene tomorrow night on my way to the movie.
Ty for explaining the cause and history of the building my aunt and uncle live in Iowa ft dodge my uncle used to teach at one of the colleges in that town before transferring to another one he's now retired but I'm glad they weren't there when that happened people should pay attention to the clientele of their buildings especially for safety sake and then things like that wouldn't happen in the first place
Thanks for the content, excellent
Glad you enjoy it!
Thanks for this information; I was very interested to know. Like the Champlain building, resistance to spending money to properly maintain and/or monitor a building can be and has been deadly. All those innocent lives ...
Wow, amazing animation and explanation 😳
Fantastic content
Glad you think so!
That shoring looks totally cheesy! You can see the drainage pipe running along the wall there, and in one Google street view, it looks as though it's not even attached at the top! That large heavy A/C roof unit is also suspect, and probably generated a lot of moisture. When they did the renovation for the apartments, I wonder if mistakes were made in regards to the duct work shafts? That 6th floor height extension to the North might have been the initial design problem way back in the day.
I think the tall section was the original ballroom. Any first-class hotel had one.
Kinda harks back to the Sampoong collapse in South Korea in 1995.
@@lazygardens Old postcards of the Davenport show the 6th floor ballroom was a later expansion. That mismatch of roof heights has to be a contributing factor!
Thanks for the video. The landlord Andrew Wold is a criminal.
Thanks Mr. Bell! This video is great and I would love to know more about how you are creating the animated sequences! For my video I recreated my building in the Sims 4 but I am sure there is a better way of doing it. I am here because I live in a building that could be in much danger of a similar fate. It is hard to wake up and live in such a building as this. People will ignore extremely scary damage for years and years and decades! I don't know why or how this happens but can understand it happens everywhere. I live in California. We know better and this should not be happening across the country! We have a 20 year old leak from our pool and spa into our 2 levels of garage below the pool. There is a huge brick structure in our garage that is obviously about to collapse. The plan it to get a concrete vendor to come patch up the structure which is made of concrete bricks! I know you are not supposed to paint bricks. After getting the city involved an attempt was made to stop the leak but it never truly stops. I asked how the wet constantly leaking structure can be repaired with concrete. There is rebar and rust staining everywhere. Because the leak has been happening for the long the whole floor of the garage is saturated with diagonal cracks spreading from all the support beams in a vast network of damp looking spider cracks that get more and more pronounced through the years! The HOA does not care about anything but enjoying the hot tub above which they just bought a new heater for. Whenever the jets are turned on the water leaks faster. I'd rather have a building than a hot tub. Please send prayers. That is all that is keeping our building up I think! I am not sure how much longer I will be around but have dedicated the rest of my life to promoting building safety. Decades of neglect started shortly after my building was built. as far as I can tell there has always been a pool leaking problem and a flat pool deck that does not drain also contributes greatly to the damage. I swear if you could go back in time and warn everyone I doubt you could change history.
nice
A covered walkway to protect pedestrians from falling bricks? What the actual hell?
Yes Mr. Bell, very useful info; you have done your job well.
We all have our unique Missions in life...thank you very much for fulfulling yours w/your building/architecture and engineer expertise. I hope this video production you have made gives Hope to the people who lost loved ones they care about. May Yahuah The Most High God help all involved; Love and Shalome.
My apt was built 2021. Balconies are literally stacked on top of each other w only a 6"x6" support in 2 outer corners. Many of these wood "supports" are cracking & litterally splitting. The cement footings have many cracks. Have reported to Management & the city (said no action needed). I am not an engineer, but this just screams danger to me. Marshalltown IA
They had not released the footage of the building coming down. So sad in 5 seconds . With 80+ apartments they never did say how many were actually rented . Surprised they only found a few pets inside . Thankful only 3 people missing . Sad all these people won’t be able to get their belongings . Prayers to the families involved . Thanks for the information on the building .
Here is footage of the actual collapse ruclips.net/video/qnNQ3maHGdg/видео.html
Good analysis. You convinced me. Cheapo pays double. Most people don't want to pay for needed repairs and maintenance, which is also the case in my building. Too many cheap and greedy people, all they think about is money
Nice explanation. It appears to be another case where the city moved too slowly and without enough pressure. Do you think the building is so unstable that residents can't return to retrieve their belongings? While the apartments along the collapsed wall may be a risk, I'd think the remainder of the building would be safe enough for that.
I wouldn't want to be the one who had to make the call about letting people back in to recover valuables. A small vibration could loosen more brick wall and a further collapse although that seems unlikely. Whatever was fragile would probably have fallen already. The inner steel frame survived the shocks and shaking and seems solid but the bricks are a different story.
These are mostly people with limited means and this is a real blow to lose everything although they should be in line for disaster compensation.
@@Mike-Bell Yeah, the ones on the failed wall would be really risky. But I'm getting the impression the other walls are in better shape. I'm mostly concerned about the irreplaceable as well as the hard to replace stuff - photos, legal papers, etc. I wouldn't advise taking furniture or appliances.
@@russellhltn1396 the problem is if you do start letting people back in some will abuse the process and try bring all their stuff out increasing the lift and unreasonably endanger rescue workers.
@@Mike-Bell In some instances, they take the residents in under supervision and tell them what to take: phones, computers, important papers, meds, small high value items ... and that's ALL. You get one chance.
And photograph the contents that are left behind for insurance and other claims.
@@lazygardens thank you very much for the update. Glad to hear they are trying to assist tenants. And such brave rescuers helping out.
STAGE 101-
2 dumpsters were already on site for "repair work" last 2 weeks.
You can see the wall from Google maps. Where were the city inspectors? There has been a few construction projects on this building in the past few years. Why were the inspectors blind to this safety issue?
I feel like calling it shoddy construction is a bit off... no one involved with construction or design probably expected this building to get to over 100 years old.
I work on this building roughly 10 years ago when they gutted the inside dumping tons of money into it. It’s impossible to take a old dumpy building like this and try to modernize it because you end up taking so many short cut trying to make thing work
Sad. In Canada, (Vanc. Island, etc) and many places, tax incentives are great enough to keep the charm of the older buildings alive. The state really does help landlords that play by rules, and work to _restore_ a city's old splendor. Reforms / law changes can work. They _do_ work - in other countries. We need to just copy it.
@@KathrynsWorldWildfireTracking I get what you are saying but here in the US we are way over tax already, seem like all our money goes to paying for our never ending growing government and military that seem to be the world’s policeman that has to protect the smaller countries. We are now sending trillions in weapons & cash to Ukraine. The US is starting to turn into a third world country because all our money is being outsourced🤷
@@blizzdog3881 You - didn't get what I was saying. :) It's ok. To be clear - I said "Tax incentives." That means - a tax break for building owners that 1) Restore safely, to code. 2) Maintain/enhance original charm (No replacing a Victorian with, say, an ugly-ass "Darth Vader" structure of "modern" persuasion - within historic neighborhoods.)
Never, did I imply, taxes were raised on anybody. Cheers!
Edit: Also, consider the cost to cities to clean up collapsed structures. Companies just go bankrupt. The cost of cleanup - is on YOU. Higher taxes on YOU. Canada turned historic buildings into things that saved owners/the public money. Our current, obviously failing system - creates an enormous cost. (In lives and money.) It don't work.
5 people are unaccounted for, not 2. At least 2 are suspected to be in the rubble.
I am interested to follow the building permits and who/ which inspector or engineer signed off for the lack of shoring? In fact, at first glance it appears there is no shoring or secondary bracing... was the building dept aware? They should have been (obviously). All remaining thoughts and prayers to the families with lost loved ones, plus those unnecessarily displaced.
From what I've seen, the city inspector/engineer filed a report after an interim inspection on 5/24 or 25 that showed a green color coded "PASS" which was subsequently changed to a red coded "FAIL" soon after the collapse. The article included screen captures of both of the conflicting reports. I have been unable to verify further if that is the case.
The desire to tear it down so quickly really makes a case for investigating who involved knew what and who had money to gain by letting things slide with permitting and engineering.
Were you guys the ones with the high tech drone flying around this afternoon? I seen it when I drove by.
That was a local who allowed me use of his footage. It couldn't have been me LOL. I'm thousands of miles away in South Africa
I have always seen brick used as a facial structure but not a load bearing structure. And 911 call said they know about it before the event so why was anyone occupying the structure at all?
Bricks were falling. Damn and nothing was done except to protect the people walking below. Crazy
If you go on Google street view, especially in the alley, the foundation to me, looks older than the date of construction of the hotel! They might have repurposed a foundation from a previous building on that sight when they built the Davenport. Not an uncommon occurrence back then. An old stone foundation for a building of that height and weight?
Settling foundations are easy to spot on a brick building and this one showed none. I doubt it was foundation. The brick on the west was cheap brick built sloppily and hacked to bits and not maintained with any care.
Absolutely Frightening: that landlord needs to be accountable for homicide. This was clearly understood as unsafe. 🇺🇲🦖☄️
Your animations are great. How do you make them?
I use Blender for 3d animations. Its free software yet very powerful and fantastic youtube learning videos.
The 2d animation is done on iPad using Procreate 😀
@@Mike-Bell thanks :-)
If there’s ever a building collapse near me in Australia, I’ll be sure to get you exclusive drone footage for your use!
Excellentl!.. except its better if no buildings collapse, but then again there are too many incompetents and greedy owners out there.
A citizen called 911 the day before the collapse to report the wall was "bulging". The audio is circulating online. Sorry, I don't have a link.
Actually it was the contractor who was doing the brick repair job who phoned 911. He didn’t get off his lazy butt on a Saturday afternoon and inspect the concerns himself and check if his employees were safe.
@@Mike-Bell Actually, the warnings came from the responsible contractor who was not hired because he refused to cut corners! His $50,000 bid was rejected as too high and instead the building owner hired a "contractor" who would do the job without any shoring for only $3,000. The building permit named the building owner as the acting general contractor.
So anyway there will be patching and painting over of the brick structure in my building if I cannot get an engineer involved. It is not a very old building, 1991. But the problems seemed to have started shortly after the build was built! I hear brick work needs to breath. It looks better painted but in this case the fix was all wrong. The rest of the Davenport building still looks strong though.
I have pics of the basement from 2019 showing the cobblestone walls and bricks, how can I reach out to you Mr. Bell?
Those pics would be very interesting. Please email them to tadpolefarm@gmail.com
Could potentially use them in my follow up video.
@@Mike-Bell sent
@@563audits5 Thanks very much. Is that basement under the entire building or just the western side?
@@Mike-Bell entire building
1:55: " the outer wall looks to be... 5 bricks thick"
WRONG
the inner, load-bearing part of that outer wall is 5 bricks thick. It was hidden by the outer, fascade, layer of bricks.
Strange that the building had bricks on the outside supporting the steel inside. To save money, I presume.
Back then the building industry was experimenting with how to incorporate steel structure into buildings dominated by masonry structure.
I don't fully blame the landlord. How could this building pass inspections by the city. Why wasn't it condemned long before it got to the point of collapsing ?
Jeez it’s been like 4-5 days and people have computer models of the thing collapsing?
At least it held up better than building 7
OK no foundation collapse. The building was over one hundred years old. The older it got the more maintenance it needs. The out-of-date building process and the owner ignoring the warning signs of failure contributed to the structural failure of the building. I think the cost of maintaining this old building had a role to play in the buildings' demise. When was the building last inspected by a third-party inspector? By third party, I mean someone that does not care if the building stands or not. Public safety should be paramount.
What time of day did this occur?
It happened at 4:55pm on Sunday.
@@Mike-Bell Thanks.
If this has been a problem for over fifty years, the logical thing to do FIRST would be to go after the crooked Building Inspectors that have given this particular building a clean bill of health for so long.
Regardless of that, I've worked on many buildings that are of the same type of construction... Many even older than this particular example.
In over 40 years of personal experience, I've NEVER seen such catastrophic failure... Ever.
I have to admit that this instance seems altogether too sudden and coincidental.
Hopefully there are people with hearts and working brains in the community who aren't afraid to override the arbitrary directives and suggestions that are being handed down from the "Officials".
CERTAINLY there are at least a few current and ex Military Personell in the area who are trained in Search and Rescue.
CERTAINLY there are several trained Medical Professionals in the area who'd be proud to stand by and tend to whoever may survive, or to those who search and might get hurt.
CERTAINLY there are plenty of "regular people" in the area who are willing to keep an eye out for imminent collapse and could immediately alert those inside that there's imminent danger.
CERTAINLY there are a couple local Veterinarians who would be happy to attend to the pets inside that may still be alive.
You see?
We've somehow gotten totally SOFT and now stupidly rely on being TOLD what and what not to do by "Authorities"... Who by anyone with 2 brain cells left to rub together, should appear as worthless as they really are.
If we're to survive as a Nation, we're going to have to grow another set of stones like we had BEFORE The Powers That Be took total control.
I can't tell who you're mad at but it's entertaining
@@ThePlanBPill I'm not too enthused about us humans in general.
Somewhere along the line, we became "soft" and now rely on "Authorities" to tell us what to do and when to do it.
Forty years ago, people in a community that experienced a disaster such as this, would have jumped in as soon as the dust cleared... Never mind what GOVERNO MENTIS has to say.
There would have been people who knew exactly what they were doing and more importantly, wouldn't expect any kind of recognition or compensation for doing it.
No one would have given a second thought about "legal" ramifications or "safety" concerns... knowing that there were probably still lives to save inside that pile of bricks.
Screw heavy equipment... Forty years ago, we'd have figured out how to get that debris off of the pile... 3/4 ton pickup trucks, winches, jacks, timbers... Anything on hand or nearby... With almost no concern for personal safety.
But things are very, very different these days.
And somehow everything seems nefarious and crooked.
Too many inconsistencies and too many questionable "rules".
But that's just me, the old man talking.
Cheers
@Slick Andrews my friend I'm sure you're very brave your generation of course the GREATEST OF ALL TIME but they'll just arrest you if you "jump in"
Not sure your generation experienced such an over-funded and aggressive police force
There are probably millions of buildings built similar to this around the country. Probably thousands in New York city.
I have a feeling we are going to see more of this kind of thing unfortunately.
Sounds about right based off how it fell.
what contractor hired the brikies?
Check out Iowa's bridges , some of the worst in the country.
It's asatonishing to me that the brick was supposed to hold up the steel structure, especially for such a large building. And it's evident from the film footage that the brickwork was very badly done.
they were working on the building. look at all the concrete inside the dumpsters. how did the wood pallet get on top? Try again.......
I must remember to sell all my buildings in the USA
There's cats on the ledges!
4:00 The collapse. From the bottom.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
There was a fire in 1939
Why hadn’t the city inspected this property? Like a bridge fell in our city and the city said the railroad company was responsible but why do these inspectors for cities even collect a paycheck?
The city posted over 100 inspection reports and correspondence with
The owner. Some of the photos are really scary. Loads of red flags.
Mike - There is now a clip of the start of the collapse that's been posted online. The first part of the wall that collapses is right where you said it would be. ruclips.net/video/qnNQ3maHGdg/видео.html
Thank you for your analysis...
Hey Steve
Thanks very much for the link. Now know where the crumbling started. This contractor made it clear to the owner that the brickwork required shoring but was dismissed. The danger was plain to see.
Who's the landlord.
Andrew Wold is the owner. He owns a lot of buildings in the city