As a resident of Connecticut and a commercial builder I recall this mishap quite well. As a matter of fact one of our electrical subcontractors lost his partner in this collapse. Hard to imagine men were permitted to work below the slabs during the lifting process.
A large part of that death toll were plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs and the like who were installing infrastructure on the floors below. this is no longer done until the building superstructure is complete on this style of construction
As an electrician, that makes me feel a little better about the learning we've done. Ive been expected to go some wild places, but I don't work on stuff like this, and the more I watch John's content, the more I'm glad we dont do jobs like these.
Some years ago I was doing an electrical inspection at a completely built and correctly constructed building for the client. One of the foremen appeared out of the blue, waving his arms like a windmill because I was not wearing a hard hat. Seeing me confused, he first said that the agent responsible for lifting the rule had been off sick for the last 6 weeks. Then when he came back to lend me the visitors crown, he added, "What would happen if the floor above collapsed". When I arrived the following afternoon, the lads who had been laughing so much the previous day had chalked a cartoon on the wall. It was an elevation where one corner of the building was collapsing. There was a matchstick drawing of me standing on a stool in the corner, grinning like a Cheshire cat, while propping the entire weight of the building up on my head. Needless to say wearing the visitor hat. Even the foreman managed to crack a smile.
where are all you entitled women that dont need no man? oh... your safe in your little air conditioned office jobs not in these death traps we call jobs... or new construction
@@wilsjane Anything could happen when paperwork hasn't yet been signed... What are you? An idiot... Get that hard hat on until the safety signature has been drawn.
I sat in the concrete journal section of the library during exam revision. I never got bored enough to read about concrete. Thank you for explaining it and saving me from reading
Hey John, I just wanted to say I hope you know your work is genuinely appreciated by a lot of people, myself included. It's great education, great entertainment, and I love the little bits of humor interspersed throughout. I'd imagine it takes a lot of effort to make these for us, so I'm just glad you're willing to make that effort. Please keep doing what you're doing. 🙂
On the block right next to where I grew up, they were building an apartment complex, apparently there were people under the formworks for the ground floor, checking on the supports when the concrete pouring was already well underway. The floor collapsed as it was being cast, trapping several workers under tons of fresh concrete and - worst of all - a layer of steel reinforcement, which made recovery completely impossible at first. I remember a lineup of about 10 ambulances that day, and cleanup went on throughout the night and the following days to avoid the concrete hardening in place. 2 out of 4 victims were lost.
I was in class as a senior at Kolbe High School, which was a block away from the collapse. My mother who worked nearby, brought blankets and supplies to the survivors. Later that year, as a freshman in college, my roommate's best friend, was the youngest killed. He was a teenager working with his father, for just a couple of weeks. The father who was outside of the building at the time, survived.
I saw a documentary about this disaster some years ago, and from what I remember, the cause of the shear head failure was the supports for the rebar were too short, meaning the rebar was below centre of the concrete block, putting it under compression, instead of tension.
I grew up in Bridgeport and I was 11 years old when this happened. Because I was so young, it was barely on my radar, so I had basically forgotten about it until today. But seeing the images of the collapse does bring back some memories.
@@PlainlyDifficultMan, I feel it too. I can barely wait until the worst part of winter moves along to be replaced with normal temperatures. I have to take at least one hot shower every day, in addition to wearing wool clothes indoors. Best wishes to you.
@@PlainlyDifficult Have you heard of the not dissimilar collapse, that happened during the construction of terminal 5 at Heathrow. In this case (as far as I can remember) it was precast flooring beams with insufficient bearing. I believe that 2 people died and a handful more were injured. First reports suggested that as the floors were added, the structural steels were thinner, requiring the floor beams to get progressively longer. The agent doing the daily site orders knew nothing about any off this and did not bother about the length code. The collapse was the multi storey car park.
Norwegians are totally cool in my opinion. Shout out to Halvor, Anneline, and Lina. Party animals and great people all round. Hope your district heating or heat pumps keep you toasty and comfy. 🤗
John, I hope you’re feeling better now in the new year. You educate and entertain so many people that you deserve to be riding high. Now I’m off to give Sizzle an exploratory listen.
Thanks John, I live not far from this site in CT. Born in 82 Ive been fascinated by the investigation into the collapse my whole life. As a welder who has done a fair amount of structural work, this disaster has never left my psyche.
I'd love to see a video on the Penmanshiel Tunnel collapse on the East Coast Main Line in 1979. It might not be a huge accident on the grand scheme of things, but it led to the deaths of two people who remain in the tunnel to this day, and caused the ECML and the adjacent A1 road to have to be realigned over a three month period. The cause of the collapse was never conclusively proven but the report is an interesting read nevertheless.
Oh gosh, I would like to see Penmanshiel too! Probably one of the first disasters I remember as a kid. Do you think Paisley Gilmour Street accident would be a good one too?
My dad worked in Bridgeport and we lived a town north of the city. He came home for lunch, something he usually didn't. He left after lunch and then called us when he got back to the office to tell us that the building had collapsed! It was right off the highway (as your overhead photos showed) that he took into work and was very visible both before and after the collapse.
There were three identical lift slab buildings under construction in our town in New York in a business park. During the same time as the collapse. The final building had steel up and was just starting pouring slabs. Project was stopped and third building was eventually demolished.
Great to see this covered. Lived in Bridgeport my whole life within walking distance of the site and memorial. Always got to hear stories from family and friends of that day.
John, Thank you for not playing music over your clear voice. For people like myself who are hard of hearing, music spoils the experience of listening to it.
I grew up in the town next to Bridgeport when this occurred. It was, obviously, huge news at the time. Bridgeport is a city that, like many industrial cities in the 1980s, was suffering from economic decline, and this event only made attempts to improve it more difficult.
My family lived in Milford from the 80s to 90s, and my uncle was on this jobsite, on break, when this went down. I wasnt both until the early 90s ask i just grew up with this being some mythological event that fucked my uncle up mentally
likewise, I was thinking about the Bridgeport of then vs now. Before I moved away, I always thought it was funny to go to sporting events at Harbor Yard and think about the horrible public house that had previously made that are very dangerous.
@@stephenbritton9297 is the road between Milford and Bridgeport still designed by a fucking 4 year old? I visited ct after i got my license and i just remember how absolutely insane the road layout was
I was doing contract welding around the time of the Conneticut colapse, on Lynn/Revere Ma. town line for the Company TexStar on one of these monstrosities, there wasn't alot holding the slabs up. We were welding the "wedges" (as they were refered to by the texstar employees)and wind bracings that were the permanent holding mechanism. Kind of unerving being between the slabs, which by the way were about 8-10 inches thick and about 60 ft.x 150 ft. in size.
As someone that worked construction over 40years you should use your own judgment as to whether operation or method is safe. If you have any doubts fallow your gut and you'll live longer as construction is dangerous even if done right. Good luck!
I love seeing a new Plainly Difficult video notification….from a currently frosty and miserable western Canada. We’ll see you at a MILLION subs very soon!!
Your videos are always very educational and feel very respectful of the incidents and tragedies they cover. We all thank you for always doing your best with your videos! You sound exhausted or drained - I'm just a stranger online but I do hope you're doing well, sleeping well, and taking time for yourself.
I also recommend, "Why Buildings Stand Up", also by Salvadori. I bought copies of both for my late FIL, a materials scientist and engineer at NIST. He loved them both.
Yeah, I’d never heard of this one before either! I’m a big news junkie, and somehow I missed it. Thanks PD, for bringing this collapse to my attention.
It was this channel that informed me of a similar collapse, actually two just within a few minutes drive of where I grew up in Virginia, USA. As someone who's worked both residential and commercial trades as my way of higher education I am glad and not so much that someone had to die for me to feel and actually be safe. Just like boarding a plane where I always think of the many that perished before me that brought the policies and advancements needed to not have more unnecessary accidents, not that any are necessary.
Thank you for giving us the Imperial measurements. It makes it so much easier to focus on the story (without getting caught up in my own head doing mental maths).
I read that book shortly after it was published. Very interesting and well done. It started a lifetime interest in all things constructed and the engineering involved. Also, things that get deconstructed on purpose, for example, by implosion. Their second book is also good about why things stay up. Recommended good reading for non-engineers.
Have you read Why Buildings Stand Up (also by Mario Salvadore)? I worked in Hamden when L'Ambiance Plaza fell, and we could see the work in progress from our windows.
I read both from the library as a kid in the '90s, and later bought a used copy of the original edition of _Why Buildings Fall Down_ (with the collapsing bricks design on the dust jacket). And yah, I remember L'Ambiance Plaza from that book -- along with a few _other_ lift-slab mishaps in the same chapter.
I was a concrete carpenter for years and form blowouts were somewhat common at least 1-3 would happen on every build. all it takes is a small leak and yards of concrete will pour out the of the forms. most times theres no injuries just tons of overtime to get the concrete cleaned up before it hardens. total failure is rare but it does happen mostly do to lack of bracing on the shoring
When you release a video, I am always thankful. Get to feeling better! And thank you again for another refresh of something that happened when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember bits of it.
As a professional builder I love your videos. More importantly as an old metalhead, I love your new disaster scale. Guess I'm rather easily amused these days. Thank you John.
Thank you for making educational, interesting, and entertaining videos like this. In particular thank you for not joining the trend of making videos unnecessarily long or engaging in quantity over quality as other UA-camrs have done.
I enjoy these short videos but they do leave a lot of important info out. If a disaster piques my interest I will watch a long video about it. These videos are great because I discover a lot disasters I hadn't heard of.
Why Buildings Fail Down is one of my favorite books. I've read it several times. He explains what went wrong very clearly. I highly recommend this book if you like this topic.
Thank you for this video. I am always fascinated by the thousand-and-one justifications given for why a particular path was chosen, which ultimately led to a failure that could have been prevented. Subscribed.
I live in Bridgeport ct and i pass by there all the time and i never knew so many passed away there. I remember my father telling me about a build collapse but i didn’t know it was to this magnitude wow.
Never knew about this construction method before, and after watching this, I now know why. It's just very difficult to make sure things are level, time and equipment saved doesn't worth the risks, so none of the building where I live were built this way.
Just a small clarification on the procedure for manufacturing prestressed concrete (3:20). The tension is applied to the cables before the concrete is cast. Then, after the concrete has cured the cable tension is released, pulling the concrete into compression.
So each floor had to be lifted and re-welded in place for the floors below it? Doesn’t that make the concrete move a lot more than normal, and is much more dangerous anyway?
Sounds like it would be. That, plus engineering is done for just the strength required and not much more, in the old days before computers buildings were so over-engineered they would stand up to anything. That's why so many 70-100 year old buildings, bridges etc. are still around and functional.
@@tncorgi92 My state government apparently used to build their buildings by engineering them to commercial building standards, then multiplying anything load bearing to at least double the strength. This resulted in things like suspended lights being strong enough to hold 2 or 3 adults swinging off them, or school buildings strong enough to have multistorey carparks added on top. Very high standards... But of course with that came costs of triple or more what a similar commercial grade building would be, and that's before the contractors got in and added their "government project bonus multiplier".
If the stressing is done after the concrete pour, it is called "post-tensioned" reinforcing. Pre-stressed reinforcing is done before the concrete is poured. It is an important distinction.
I uses to be the one on the ram stressing the cable from what I remember it was somewhere around 6000lbs. Some people that describe it have never actually seen it done saying the cable is through pipes lol . Rebar is set at varying heights along the deck of the pour you roll out the cable and tie it to the rebar it in a plastic sheath totally coated inside with. Vaseline like lubricant. After the concrete passes test we would stress each cable with a hydraulic ram.
Hey John, i was sick when you were, had a nasty bout of the flu. Hope youre feeling better now, the bout i had was particularly nasty, i wouldn't have blamed you for taking some time off. Again, hope the weather and your health has improved since recording!
In Alberta Canada they were building a huge tank for holding oil sands oil, and the wind blew it over with dozens of workers inside. Search for CNRL tank farm collapse. ONly a few years ago, like 2007
3:26 - It's important to point out that pre-stressed concrete comes in two varieties - pre-tensioning and post-tensioning. The method of tightening the cables *after* the concrete has hardened is called post-tensioning. The video seems to imply that this is a feature of all pre-stressed concrete. It is not.
@@tncorgi92 I feel you. We broke freezing Wednesday but that's been the only day. Today is a balmy 20° at my house in the sun 🤣 My kids are going bananas lol but they're still small so can't spend a lot of time outside, even well equipped. Our snow finally melted totally on Thursday/friday
Oh my fucking God my uncle was at that job site. I literally grew up hearing stories of this accident, and it absolutely broke my uncle. He was on break or something when it went down. He described identifying his coworkers by scooping their wallets out of pancaked remains
one day i hope plainly difficult makes a video of a disaster before it happens, perfectly predicting the injuries, death toll, cost of damages, and legal outcome.
Yay Citypop! Other than that, this is the only video you have done that I had any relation to. My family had friends that were involved in this whole mess.
Tighten steel before pour usually, which is why it's called 'prestressed'. 25mm rebar twangs like a guitar string when it's been tensioned. Very tight. You usually leave the form untouched for at least 21 days to cure, before releasing the beam.
Good vid, as always! Prestressed concrete has the steel tendons fully stretched before the concrete is poured. Concrete which has the tendons stretched after the pour is called post-tensioned.
Idea for you John... Look into the Rosemont Horizon disaster in Chicago in 1979. It's what happens when you hire steelworkers to construct a massive wooden building!
It’s nearly like the second Québec bridge collapse (when the central span - of the cantilever bridge - was being hoisted, one of the hoists gave way and the span slipped out of the jacks, plunging in the river below. The collapse was caught on a famous photograph).
I strongly suggest a video about the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, back in 2013. More than 1.100 people died in a building collapse while they were working but it seems like this story is getting forgotten. I hope that this unbelievable disaster will get the attention it deserves one day
We always tensioned afterward cable runs like a wave through the concrete tied to rebar in a lubricated sheath tied to rebar grommets(anchors) at ends of thee cables attached to thee perimeter forms on the inside of the pour. Once the concrete passes the strength test we would put grooved wedges that sat together around the cable in two halves into the grommet and use a hydraulic ram that would grip the cable at the same time holding the keepers(wedges) tight inside the grommet when you reach the stress level around 3 ton or 6000 lbs you release the ram. I never had a blow out though I have heard stories of cables blowing through the concrete
As wielding temp bracing, I would think they could stack solid blocks in the general area , on each floor in the same location to transfer the weight to the foundation in case of the failure described. But the video does not address the first failure of the concrete slab that allowed side/(the lateral axis) movement. No one blamed the concrete strength? or age?
As a resident of Connecticut and a commercial builder I recall this mishap quite well. As a matter of fact one of our electrical subcontractors lost his partner in this collapse. Hard to imagine men were permitted to work below the slabs during the lifting process.
It's seems like such a terrible idea. How the hell anyone thinks starting a building from the top down is a good idea is mind boggling.
That's a big ol' WTF....
You ain't lying
Permitted? Forced is the word. Compelled by fear of losing their jobs.
Humans are pretty good at doing things any which way until an actual accident/incident causes someone to start enforcing some rules....
A large part of that death toll were plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs and the like who were installing infrastructure on the floors below. this is no longer done until the building superstructure is complete on this style of construction
As an electrician, that makes me feel a little better about the learning we've done.
Ive been expected to go some wild places, but I don't work on stuff like this, and the more I watch John's content, the more I'm glad we dont do jobs like these.
Some years ago I was doing an electrical inspection at a completely built and correctly constructed building for the client.
One of the foremen appeared out of the blue, waving his arms like a windmill because I was not wearing a hard hat. Seeing me confused, he first said that the agent responsible for lifting the rule had been off sick for the last 6 weeks. Then when he came back to lend me the visitors crown, he added, "What would happen if the floor above collapsed".
When I arrived the following afternoon, the lads who had been laughing so much the previous day had chalked a cartoon on the wall. It was an elevation where one corner of the building was collapsing. There was a matchstick drawing of me standing on a stool in the corner, grinning like a Cheshire cat, while propping the entire weight of the building up on my head. Needless to say wearing the visitor hat. Even the foreman managed to crack a smile.
where are all you entitled women that dont need no man? oh... your safe in your little air conditioned office jobs not in these death traps we call jobs... or new construction
@@wilsjane
Anything could happen when paperwork hasn't yet been signed... What are you? An idiot... Get that hard hat on until the safety signature has been drawn.
All H&S rules are written in somebodies blood.
Holy crap. It's a concrete building failure but not in Florida. 😲
Or Zhongguo 😮
But somehow still in the US like pretty much all absolutely catastrophic events in that area 😂
Florida would be all the modern disasters
« Regardless of the lack of Florida »
Not everything bad happens in florida.
I sat in the concrete journal section of the library during exam revision. I never got bored enough to read about concrete. Thank you for explaining it and saving me from reading
Thank you!
Hey John, I just wanted to say I hope you know your work is genuinely appreciated by a lot of people, myself included. It's great education, great entertainment, and I love the little bits of humor interspersed throughout. I'd imagine it takes a lot of effort to make these for us, so I'm just glad you're willing to make that effort. Please keep doing what you're doing. 🙂
👏!
On the block right next to where I grew up, they were building an apartment complex, apparently there were people under the formworks for the ground floor, checking on the supports when the concrete pouring was already well underway. The floor collapsed as it was being cast, trapping several workers under tons of fresh concrete and - worst of all - a layer of steel reinforcement, which made recovery completely impossible at first. I remember a lineup of about 10 ambulances that day, and cleanup went on throughout the night and the following days to avoid the concrete hardening in place. 2 out of 4 victims were lost.
I was in class as a senior at Kolbe High School, which was a block away from the collapse. My mother who worked nearby, brought blankets and supplies to the survivors. Later that year, as a freshman in college, my roommate's best friend, was the youngest killed. He was a teenager working with his father, for just a couple of weeks. The father who was outside of the building at the time, survived.
Bravo, John. Your documentaries may be short, but they are packed with protein and no filler. Not a *speck* of cereal. Thanks mate.
You forgot "only loosely accurate"
I saw a documentary about this disaster some years ago, and from what I remember, the cause of the shear head failure was the supports for the rebar were too short, meaning the rebar was below centre of the concrete block, putting it under compression, instead of tension.
@@karlwithak.This, and bean counters are often the cause of workplace accidents unfortunately.
Clear as mud.
I'm so glad someone else has enjoyed that book as much as I have, How Buildings Fall Down is a classic!
I grew up in Bridgeport and I was 11 years old when this happened. Because I was so young, it was barely on my radar, so I had basically forgotten about it until today. But seeing the images of the collapse does bring back some memories.
John, I sympathize with your sentiment of feeling rough these days. Greetings from a similarly rather cold and rough place in east Oslo, Norway.
Thank you I hope it not too chilly up there! I’ve got this unshakeable cold 😬
@@PlainlyDifficultMan, I feel it too. I can barely wait until the worst part of winter moves along to be replaced with normal temperatures. I have to take at least one hot shower every day, in addition to wearing wool clothes indoors. Best wishes to you.
Same here in Michigan, I'm laying in bed post surgery from Wednesday on my foot. Thanks for another great video 😊
@@PlainlyDifficult Have you heard of the not dissimilar collapse, that happened during the construction of terminal 5 at Heathrow. In this case (as far as I can remember) it was precast flooring beams with insufficient bearing. I believe that 2 people died and a handful more were injured. First reports suggested that as the floors were added, the structural steels were thinner, requiring the floor beams to get progressively longer. The agent doing the daily site orders knew nothing about any off this and did not bother about the length code.
The collapse was the multi storey car park.
Norwegians are totally cool in my opinion. Shout out to Halvor, Anneline, and Lina. Party animals and great people all round. Hope your district heating or heat pumps keep you toasty and comfy. 🤗
John, I hope you’re feeling better now in the new year. You educate and entertain so many people that you deserve to be riding high.
Now I’m off to give Sizzle an exploratory listen.
I had to give Sizzle a listen too!
Feel better soon,
Feel better, John. Respect from NC.
I was just about to post this and I'm from North Carolina😊
I wasn't about to post this and I'm from the mountains of Virginia
Thanks John, I live not far from this site in CT. Born in 82 Ive been fascinated by the investigation into the collapse my whole life. As a welder who has done a fair amount of structural work, this disaster has never left my psyche.
I'd love to see a video on the Penmanshiel Tunnel collapse on the East Coast Main Line in 1979. It might not be a huge accident on the grand scheme of things, but it led to the deaths of two people who remain in the tunnel to this day, and caused the ECML and the adjacent A1 road to have to be realigned over a three month period. The cause of the collapse was never conclusively proven but the report is an interesting read nevertheless.
Oh gosh, I would like to see Penmanshiel too! Probably one of the first disasters I remember as a kid. Do you think Paisley Gilmour Street accident would be a good one too?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penmanshiel_Tunnel
@@markh.6687 Thank you for sharing this. I'm going to read the article after I watch this video.
I love your channel , you give clear and easy to understand information. Thank you for your hard work .
Thank you!
My dad worked in Bridgeport and we lived a town north of the city. He came home for lunch, something he usually didn't. He left after lunch and then called us when he got back to the office to tell us that the building had collapsed! It was right off the highway (as your overhead photos showed) that he took into work and was very visible both before and after the collapse.
Something told him to go home for lunch
There were three identical lift slab buildings under construction in our town in New York in a business park. During the same time as the collapse. The final building had steel up and was just starting pouring slabs. Project was stopped and third building was eventually demolished.
I just want to say that I do appreciate you giving us a heads up before ads run. Love your videos, and I'm slowly working my way through them all.
Thank you!
Great to see this covered. Lived in Bridgeport my whole life within walking distance of the site and memorial. Always got to hear stories from family and friends of that day.
John, Thank you for not playing music over your clear voice. For people like myself who are hard of hearing, music spoils the experience of listening to it.
I grew up in the town next to Bridgeport when this occurred. It was, obviously, huge news at the time. Bridgeport is a city that, like many industrial cities in the 1980s, was suffering from economic decline, and this event only made attempts to improve it more difficult.
My family lived in Milford from the 80s to 90s, and my uncle was on this jobsite, on break, when this went down. I wasnt both until the early 90s ask i just grew up with this being some mythological event that fucked my uncle up mentally
likewise, I was thinking about the Bridgeport of then vs now. Before I moved away, I always thought it was funny to go to sporting events at Harbor Yard and think about the horrible public house that had previously made that are very dangerous.
@@stephenbritton9297 is the road between Milford and Bridgeport still designed by a fucking 4 year old? I visited ct after i got my license and i just remember how absolutely insane the road layout was
@@RovingTroll whole state… makes my blood pressure rise any time I’m back there driving anywhere…
@@stephenbritton9297 it's insanity. I thought Virginia roads were bad, then Florida and Maryland but holy shit Connecticut is wild
I was doing contract welding around the time of the Conneticut colapse, on Lynn/Revere Ma. town line for the Company TexStar on one of these monstrosities, there wasn't alot holding the slabs up. We were welding the "wedges" (as they were refered to by the texstar employees)and wind bracings that were the permanent holding mechanism. Kind of unerving being between the slabs, which by the way were about 8-10 inches thick and about 60 ft.x 150 ft. in size.
U doesn't try to stop it! I'm shocked by your callous behavior. Animal
As someone that worked construction over 40years you should use your own judgment as to whether operation or method is safe. If you have any doubts fallow your gut and you'll live longer as construction is dangerous even if done right. Good luck!
I love seeing a new Plainly Difficult video notification….from a currently frosty and miserable western Canada. We’ll see you at a MILLION subs very soon!!
Your videos are always very educational and feel very respectful of the incidents and tragedies they cover. We all thank you for always doing your best with your videos!
You sound exhausted or drained - I'm just a stranger online but I do hope you're doing well, sleeping well, and taking time for yourself.
It's the stack of pancakes you really never want to see, all because someone thought it was a "time saving" technique...
I heard that some of the area restaurants had specials on a “stack of pancakes”.
I also recommend, "Why Buildings Stand Up", also by Salvadori. I bought copies of both for my late FIL, a materials scientist and engineer at NIST. He loved them both.
Never heard of this before, unbelievable! Thanks and take care of yourself John.
Yeah, I’d never heard of this one before either! I’m a big news junkie, and somehow I missed it. Thanks PD, for bringing this collapse to my attention.
It was this channel that informed me of a similar collapse, actually two just within a few minutes drive of where I grew up in Virginia, USA. As someone who's worked both residential and commercial trades as my way of higher education I am glad and not so much that someone had to die for me to feel and actually be safe. Just like boarding a plane where I always think of the many that perished before me that brought the policies and advancements needed to not have more unnecessary accidents, not that any are necessary.
I'm astounded that the lifting plates weren't over built to cover a$$ and make such potential accidents impossible
Bean counters....
Thank you for giving us the Imperial measurements. It makes it so much easier to focus on the story (without getting caught up in my own head doing mental maths).
Last time I was this early, the disaster hadn’t occurred yet
*laughs in Soviet nuclear engineer*
@@RT-qd8ylYou had 3 likes.
Now you have 4.
Averaging out your likes, you have 3.6 likes. Not good, not terrible.
I read that book shortly after it was published. Very interesting and well done. It started a lifetime interest in all things constructed and the engineering involved. Also, things that get deconstructed on purpose, for example, by implosion. Their second book is also good about why things stay up. Recommended good reading for non-engineers.
We had a pretty famous building collapse in Brighton MA might be worth looking up
Have you read Why Buildings Stand Up (also by Mario Salvadore)? I worked in Hamden when L'Ambiance Plaza fell, and we could see the work in progress from our windows.
I read both from the library as a kid in the '90s, and later bought a used copy of the original edition of _Why Buildings Fall Down_ (with the collapsing bricks design on the dust jacket). And yah, I remember L'Ambiance Plaza from that book -- along with a few _other_ lift-slab mishaps in the same chapter.
I was a concrete carpenter for years and form blowouts were somewhat common at least 1-3 would happen on every build. all it takes is a small leak and yards of concrete will pour out the of the forms. most times theres no injuries just tons of overtime to get the concrete cleaned up before it hardens. total failure is rare but it does happen mostly do to lack of bracing on the shoring
That's an awful performance, I worked on concrete forms for years and never saw a blowout....
@@kenneth9874 do multi floor high rises it happens
@@imchris5000 I've done quite a few....competency matters....
Whole damn project was jacked up.....
You never fail to educate, John. This episode had a bonus; I had to look up "gooch time," and I look forward to using the term. 😂
Thank you
When you release a video, I am always thankful. Get to feeling better! And thank you again for another refresh of something that happened when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember bits of it.
As a professional builder I love your videos. More importantly as an old metalhead, I love your new disaster scale. Guess I'm rather easily amused these days. Thank you John.
That’s sad being a resident of CT.
What’s crazy is that in 1980s luxury and Bridgeport were used in the same sentence.
Thanks John, from stinking hot Queensland, Australia 👍
When every single new apartment building is a “Luxury Apartment”, there is no such thing as luxury apartments.
"Why Buildings Fall Down" is a great book. I got it about 20 years ago (I think).
Thank you for making educational, interesting, and entertaining videos like this. In particular thank you for not joining the trend of making videos unnecessarily long or engaging in quantity over quality as other UA-camrs have done.
I enjoy these short videos but they do leave a lot of important info out. If a disaster piques my interest I will watch a long video about it.
These videos are great because I discover a lot disasters I hadn't heard of.
Why Buildings Fail Down is one of my favorite books. I've read it several times. He explains what went wrong very clearly. I highly recommend this book if you like this topic.
Thank you for this video. I am always fascinated by the thousand-and-one justifications given for why a particular path was chosen, which ultimately led to a failure that could have been prevented.
Subscribed.
I live in Bridgeport ct and i pass by there all the time and i never knew so many passed away there. I remember my father telling me about a build collapse but i didn’t know it was to this magnitude wow.
Happy Saturday from another Jon in a currently grey and crappy southern west corner of the UK.
Thank you John for another great video!
My Dad sent me a copy of Why Buildings Fall Down back in the 90s, can confirm it is a great read.
Never knew about this construction method before, and after watching this, I now know why. It's just very difficult to make sure things are level, time and equipment saved doesn't worth the risks, so none of the building where I live were built this way.
Another of one of the best streams on the net, commenting from the cold and increasingly windy North East of England, in the Untidied Kingdom. x
These videos are terrific, John, thank you much for all you do. Someday, I'd like to see a "behind the scenes" of how you go about making these.
Thank you
i’ve been waiting for a new release!
Being on UA-cam at the right time does help
Just a small clarification on the procedure for manufacturing prestressed concrete (3:20). The tension is applied to the cables before the concrete is cast. Then, after the concrete has cured the cable tension is released, pulling the concrete into compression.
Excellent video, John.
So each floor had to be lifted and re-welded in place for the floors below it? Doesn’t that make the concrete move a lot more than normal, and is much more dangerous anyway?
Sounds like it would be. That, plus engineering is done for just the strength required and not much more, in the old days before computers buildings were so over-engineered they would stand up to anything. That's why so many 70-100 year old buildings, bridges etc. are still around and functional.
@@tncorgi92
My state government apparently used to build their buildings by engineering them to commercial building standards, then multiplying anything load bearing to at least double the strength. This resulted in things like suspended lights being strong enough to hold 2 or 3 adults swinging off them, or school buildings strong enough to have multistorey carparks added on top.
Very high standards... But of course with that came costs of triple or more what a similar commercial grade building would be, and that's before the contractors got in and added their "government project bonus multiplier".
If the stressing is done after the concrete pour, it is called "post-tensioned" reinforcing. Pre-stressed reinforcing is done before the concrete is poured. It is an important distinction.
I uses to be the one on the ram stressing the cable from what I remember it was somewhere around 6000lbs. Some people that describe it have never actually seen it done saying the cable is through pipes lol . Rebar is set at varying heights along the deck of the pour you roll out the cable and tie it to the rebar it in a plastic sheath totally coated inside with. Vaseline like lubricant. After the concrete passes test we would stress each cable with a hydraulic ram.
Used
Feel well Jon, from an icy cold northeast corner of Illinois. Love your content!
Hey John, i was sick when you were, had a nasty bout of the flu. Hope youre feeling better now, the bout i had was particularly nasty, i wouldn't have blamed you for taking some time off.
Again, hope the weather and your health has improved since recording!
6:06 CITY POP MENTIONED!!!!!!😤
Thanks for the Book suggestion!
AHHHH What a wonderful outro song!!
In Alberta Canada they were building a huge tank for holding oil sands oil, and the wind blew it over with dozens of workers inside. Search for CNRL tank farm collapse. ONly a few years ago, like 2007
3:26 - It's important to point out that pre-stressed concrete comes in two varieties - pre-tensioning and post-tensioning. The method of tightening the cables *after* the concrete has hardened is called post-tensioning. The video seems to imply that this is a feature of all pre-stressed concrete. It is not.
Petition for John to make a video on the Hard Rock Cafe collapse in New Orleans
As a former resident of the bridgeport area I've never heard of this disaster.
Thank you for your videos and thank you for making it easy to understand without making the viewers feel stupid or uneduacated.
Thank you and I hope you are better now in the new year.
From a recently thawed part of Arkansas, thank you, John. We love the content.
Mid Tennessee hasn't thawed yet. 6°F today. Videos like this help distract me from cabin fever.
@@tncorgi92 I feel you. We broke freezing Wednesday but that's been the only day. Today is a balmy 20° at my house in the sun 🤣
My kids are going bananas lol but they're still small so can't spend a lot of time outside, even well equipped. Our snow finally melted totally on Thursday/friday
Oof, sorry to hear that you live in Arkansas. I hope it gets better for you.
Oh my fucking God my uncle was at that job site. I literally grew up hearing stories of this accident, and it absolutely broke my uncle. He was on break or something when it went down. He described identifying his coworkers by scooping their wallets out of pancaked remains
Omg he stole their money, what's FILTHY ANIMAL!
one day i hope plainly difficult makes a video of a disaster before it happens, perfectly predicting the injuries, death toll, cost of damages, and legal outcome.
If I were mystic meg I’d play the lottery and pay off my mortgage!
...the floors can just be tacked-welded if only needed to be held in place for a short time.
Ah. I can see where this is going...
Yay Citypop!
Other than that, this is the only video you have done that I had any relation to. My family had friends that were involved in this whole mess.
Wild building method. Never heard of this. Thought you sounded a little under the weather. Hope you feel better soon my friend.
Another excellent and informative presentation, Thanks!
Hi John, love your channel, all the best :)
Tighten steel before pour usually, which is why it's called 'prestressed'. 25mm rebar twangs like a guitar string when it's been tensioned. Very tight.
You usually leave the form untouched for at least 21 days to cure, before releasing the beam.
I love the cover of "Why Buildings Fall Down" sporting a building that quite famously, hasn't fallen down.
Good vid, as always! Prestressed concrete has the steel tendons fully stretched before the concrete is poured. Concrete which has the tendons stretched after the pour is called post-tensioned.
Idea for you John... Look into the Rosemont Horizon disaster in Chicago in 1979. It's what happens when you hire steelworkers to construct a massive wooden building!
It’s nearly like the second Québec bridge collapse (when the central span - of the cantilever bridge - was being hoisted, one of the hoists gave way and the span slipped out of the jacks, plunging in the river below. The collapse was caught on a famous photograph).
I strongly suggest a video about the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, back in 2013.
More than 1.100 people died in a building collapse while they were working but it seems like this story is getting forgotten.
I hope that this unbelievable disaster will get the attention it deserves one day
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rana_Plaza_collapse
Brick Immortar and Fascinating Horror have both done videos on it.
Oh my god “the gooch time between Christmas and new years “ got me 😂
An insane construction method.
Great video, as always. :)
It's cold and miserable in Texas right now too. I feel ya.
Thank you for your continued time & effort.... wish you well for the new year my friend..
The tendons are tensioned before the concrete is poured. Hence the term pre-stressed. Tensioning afterward would be a disaster.
Post stressed concrete is also a frequently used building method.
We always tensioned afterward cable runs like a wave through the concrete tied to rebar in a lubricated sheath tied to rebar grommets(anchors) at ends of thee cables attached to thee perimeter forms on the inside of the pour. Once the concrete passes the strength test we would put grooved wedges that sat together around the cable in two halves into the grommet and use a hydraulic ram that would grip the cable at the same time holding the keepers(wedges) tight inside the grommet when you reach the stress level around 3 ton or 6000 lbs you release the ram. I never had a blow out though I have heard stories of cables blowing through the concrete
I like the "recently inspected" space on the bingo card. Somehow this holds true.
Sadly it’s a common theme
As wielding temp bracing, I would think they could stack solid blocks in the general area , on each floor in the same location to transfer the weight to the foundation in case of the failure described. But the video does not address the first failure of the concrete slab that allowed side/(the lateral axis) movement. No one blamed the concrete strength? or age?
I have never heard of this disaster. Wow.
Love your disaster bingo cards! Thank you.
Wow, they paid within 2 years and paid out sooner than a decade. ❤
New use of the term 'gooch' for me.
Thanks for including the “Imperial American units” this is a sad tragedy. Could have been avoided probably.
Hello, got a video suggestion:
The 2009 collaps of the Cologne city archive