WEBVTT - The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:12.600 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.200 So I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just the 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.160 two of us and we're gonna do just fine. 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.040 I have a good feeling because this is stuff you 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.919 should know. We've been at it for decades now. 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.720 Not decades, well, in different decades. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.360 Right, that's how people get you. Yeah, they say stuff 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:32.720 like that. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.400 That's right, Big CoA for this one. It is about 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:41.559 a very gruesome tragedy that we're gonna detail, and we're 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.680 gonna talk about a little bit of the gruesome stuff, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.320 but not get to you know, detailed, because it was 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.400 a terrible tragedy. But we just want to alert listeners, 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.080 especially our younger listeners, that some of this stuff is 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.680 pretty terrible. That is the events of the High Regency 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.560 Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri in nineteen eighty one. 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:07.440 Yeah, and that was just one year after that hotel opened. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:08.840 Right, that's right. 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:14.000 This is the High Regency, a forty five story, seven 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.840 hundred room hotel that opened in July of nineteen eighty 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.959 It was a part of a big suite a complex 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.759 called the Crown Center. Huh Yeah, the Crown Center complex, 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.039 and it had retail, had housing, all kinds of stuff 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:30.759 owned by the Hallmark Corporation. 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.480 That's where the Crown came from. Because remember if you 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.679 turn a Hallmark card over sometimes it says Crown. 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:39.360 Well then their logo is a Crown. 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.760 Oh yeah, that too. But this hotel, Chuck. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:44.600 If you go back and look at pictures of it 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.240 pre disaster, it was magnificent. Like if you looked up, 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.680 you would see that there was a high hall a 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.080 walkway right over your head. And that was actually one 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.480 of three that were kind of like the signature design 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.360 of this atrium at the High Regions see Kansas City. 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:02.160 That's right. 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.520 And like we said, this thing had been open for 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:10.760 about a year when the collapse tragedy occurred. During one 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.760 of their they were hosting these weekend tea dances, which 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.080 apparently were very popular in town. It was sort of 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.280 an antiquated old school thing that they did, but the 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.639 people of Kansas City ate it up and they were 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.880 just growing bigger and bigger with every weekend. And on 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.800 this particular weekend they had, you know, as they did, 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.040 they had a live band playing, and I saw anywhere 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:37.520 from I saw a thousand people in different places. This 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:39.840 is one of those things where like every time you 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:45.480 see a different video, you'll get different numbers and different things, 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.320 and these can be a little frustrating sometimes. But at 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.720 least a thousand, yeah, and maybe as many as two 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.720 thousand people there hanging out, partying and dancing in the lobby. 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:55.440 Yeah. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.880 I mean, if you see there's footage of it, because 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.320 I think one of the local TV stations was doing 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.520 a human interest piece on how popular these this dance 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.720 had becomes Friday night dance, and that place was packed 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.960 with people, not just in the atrium on the floor, 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.200 but also up at the terrace restaurant and on those 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.960 three walkways that span the entire length of the atrium 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.960 from one side to another on the second, third, and 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.720 fourth floors. So there was a ton of people. And 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.280 the number I most commonly saw was fifteen hundred, so 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.079 I guess everybody else split the difference. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.280 Yeah, so it's crowded, it's packed full of people. A 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.120 little after seven o'clock, the band comes back from a 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.840 break to play their final big number of the dance contest. 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:46.400 And you know, when you look at interviews with people 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.840 from the time, they all describe hearing three loud popping 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.960 noises or snapping noises. They sounded like, you know, some 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.280 people said they sounded like gunshots going off. 0:03:58.880 --> 0:03:59.920 In very quick success. 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.240 Floors the walkways of on floors four and two collapsed 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.840 fully these cement and we're going to go over you 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.400 know why this happened and what these are all were 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.920 made of, but you know, steel and concrete, and it 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.240 was super heavy and collapsed on hundreds and hundreds of 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:15.800 people below. 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.279 Yes, so these each one I think, weighed something like 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:25.680 thirty two tons, each of these walkways did, and one 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:30.360 was above the number. The fourth story walkway was directly 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.640 above the second story walkway, so much so that the 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.440 second story walkway was dangling from the fourth story walkway. 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.680 So in the fourth story walkway gave it came down, 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.000 the second story hit the ground first, the fourth story 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.600 walkway hit the second floor. So there was like a 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.480 stratum or a strata of layers of destruction of debris 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.760 and people were pin chuck beneath two thirty two ton 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.200 walkways that were in four segments. So each segment wasn't 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.520 thirty two tons, but it was enough to really do 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.560 a lot of damage, like immediately, like apparently it happened 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.840 in the blink of an eye basically, and I mean, 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.719 like it's really tough to get across, like how much 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.440 of a tragedy this was. Like there were couples dancing 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:17.200 that were killed simultaneously by this stuff, So that means 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.200 that there were people in Kansas City who lost both 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.560 parents all at once, or lost one parent, or lost 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.200 a friend. Like a lot of people were impacted by 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.920 this tragedy and it just happened in just the blink 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:30.560 of an eye. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.840 Yeah, I mean it ripped from the ceiling and they 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.479 just collapsed. The eyewitness accounts if you see any of 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.400 the either contemporaneous footage or they've done interviews with people 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.560 since and like follow up documentaries and such, it's just awful. 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.479 Everyone talked about how in like the some people set 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.040 up to like five seconds afterward, it was just complete silence, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:59.400 like obviously the every the band had stopped and there 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.160 was just a brief moment of nothingness and then all 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:09.000 of a sudden screaming, wailing people in some of the 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:14.800 most horrible pain and circumstances that you can imagine, which 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:16.479 again we're going to get to a little bit, But 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.240 it's if you really want to dive into the down 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:22.240 the rabbit hole of what all happened to these folks, 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.359 you can you can look this stuff up online. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.080 Yeah, there's there's actually a lot of really well written 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.360 articles on it from out of Kansas City. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.920 But the the in. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.040 That chaos that ensued almost immediately, there were a lot 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.920 of people pinned underneath. There were people who've been injured 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.680 by debris, and then there were other people who were 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.560 nearby and were just dazed and weren't really injured at all, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:51.760 but just couldn't believe what they'd just seen. And then 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.600 there was a small kind of cadre people among the 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.479 witnesses who just kind of immediately sprang into action. And 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.440 we you see footage of the immedia affrom at. You 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.520 see men in suits and women in dresses like trying 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:06.719 to pick through the debris and get people out of 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.839 there as fast as they can. And all of this 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.640 just started even before the fire department and police department 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.520 showed up to start to take charge of things. People 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.680 just immediately some people had an impulse to go in 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:19.400 there and help. 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.200 Yeah, it was and you know, we should mention that 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.080 the fire Department of the Cops. Everyone got there really 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:30.920 really fast. Yeah, apparently they were also close to hospitals. 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.640 I think there were three, it was called Hospital Hill, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.360 three hospitals that were really nearby that started taking people on. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.200 They were working, you know, basically into the night and 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:46.920 into the next morning, with a final death toll of 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:51.480 one hundred and fourteen people perished and more than two 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.840 hundred were injured. And I think they still listed as 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.960 an American history, at least the largest structural disaster in history. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.600 That it was until September eleventh, the largest in American history, 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:10.000 and then it became the largest accidental structural disaster in 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:15.400 American history. So, yeah, one hundred and fourteen people dead, 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.840 one hundred and eleven like basically dead on the scene. 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.280 Three more people who were gravely injured died later on 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:26.120 from their injuries. And the people who survived there were 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:31.240 incredibly survivors who were pinned under these walkways as slabs 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.280 of concrete, but they were in terrible shape. And there 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.760 was a man named Mark Williams who was a survivor, 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.560 and he's if you read about this or watch videos 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.920 on it, he's very prominent. He's a very outspoken type 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.880 of guy, and he talked a lot about being rescued. 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.720 He was the last person rescued all the way at 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.000 four thirty am, but he was at the bar that 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.800 was directly beneath the walkways and realized what was happening 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.160 and started to run. Those walkways fell so fast that 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.120 apparently he didn't even get his first stride, but his 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.080 legs were astride and so he was smushed down into 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.120 a split and that's where he stayed until four thirty am. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.719 And this happened at like seven pm, and he survived. 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.560 He managed to live. And there were other stories like 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:22.439 that too, a little eleven year old boy who was 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.400 pulled out of the rubble. A few people I think 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.920 six or seven or something like that were did manage 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.560 to survive, but the vast majority of people who were 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.680 on or under the walkways when they collapsed died. 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:37.320 Yeah, there was. 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:44.079 There were situations where they had to amputate arms and 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.960 legs on the spot just to get people out of 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.640 there and give them a chance at living, and they 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.000 did this kind of thing with chainsaws. There was one 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.360 and this is really gruesome, but there was one horrific 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.480 story of a guy that was, you know, trying to 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.440 pull someone out and the guy's arm just comes off 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.800 and he's holding it, and the officer on charge said, 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:11.000 the guy just set it down and left. And you know, 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.120 we'll get to the PTSD that obviously followed, but a 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:19.640 lot of these first responders, you know, there were some 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.120 suicides later on. There was alcoholism and drug use and 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.240 lives and shambles because they didn't have stuff, like you know, 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.080 they went to work the next day. They weren't like, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.600 all right, we need to get you into counseling quick 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.960 like and start taking care of you. And that's one 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:36.760 of the big changes that came out of this was 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.000 PTSD therapy for emergency responders. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.400 Yeah, and it had an impact on the entire city. 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.360 I mean, people who weren't there, people who didn't even 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.000 know people who were there, were still impacted for years 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.680 and years. It just had it just left a blotch 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.280 on the city. It was just such a horrible tragedy. 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.199 And there are a couple of other stories that stuck 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.480 out to me of the people who died. One that 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.760 did was a woman named Lynn Vander Hayden who's twenty two, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.720 and she would just happen to be walking through the 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.559 lobby on her way to the Revolving restaurant on the 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.839 top of the hotel. She was just passing through and 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.440 she died. And then another one that stood out as 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.080 a man named Oscar Grimm, who pushed his wife Joan 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.560 out of the way and she lived and he died. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.160 But he managed to act that quickly that he was 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.280 able to save his wife's life. His last act on 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.280 earth was to save his wife's life, which I think 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:37.400 is remarkable. 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:42.240 Yeah, that's amazing. So they turn the you know, it 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:47.480 basically becomes a war zone. Immediately, they turn one room 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.640 into a triage center. They turned one room into a 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.240 temporary morgue. They're trying to get people out of there 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.319 and into the parking lot. It is summertime, so was 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:02.720 still daylight during the initial efforts, but as darkness fell, 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.240 the power had been blown. So then it becomes dark 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.760 overnight when they're still you know, sort of digging through there, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.040 either trying to get dead bodies out or trying to 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.080 get people out that are still just wailing in the darkness. 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.120 And not only that, but the sprinkler system had torn 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:25.200 apart and a water pipe burst and for about fifty 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.680 minutes this. You know, parts of this room were filling 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.640 up with water, and you know, let's say you're trapped 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.800 in a very small, confined space is filling up with water. 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.640 There were survivors that said they thought they were going 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:38.760 to drown all of a sudden. 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.000 I didn't see that anyone definitively did drown, but the 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.520 people on the bottom of the pile were definitely in 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.360 danger of it for sure. It took forty five minutes, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.040 I think, to finally turn the water off forty eight 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.440 forty eight and then but there was a quick thinking 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.520 fire chief. I don't know if it was a deputy 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.320 chief I saw. I didn't get their name, and there 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.360 were a bunch of deputy chiefs there, but they were like, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.880 we need to bulldoze these front doors because they're acting 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.160 as a damn. So they bulldozed the doors and let 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.480 the water out and kind of saved the day. But 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:12.920 that was I mean, imagine being pinned beneath this rubble 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.880 and now you might accidentally drown. 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:17.679 Like what a day. 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:22.040 Yeah, it was. It was a tragedy that still looms large. 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.440 And maybe we should take a break and talk about 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.079 what happened and why this happened right after this. 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.160 So, Chuck, there were so many people and very fortunately, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.320 like you said, they were near a few hospitals, but 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.880 they ended up requiring seventeen emergency rooms for this. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:05.120 Yeah. 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:09.720 They construction companies came in and were donating forklifts, they 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:14.080 were donating cranes, people were donating their own personal equipment. 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:19.360 Everybody basically came and chipped in. You mentioned those front 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.160 doors being knocked down. They ended up knocking holes through 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.320 the entire front of the hotel, not holes like there 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.720 was no front of the hotel because they had to 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.960 get a crane in there eventually. Because all the equipment 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.480 that they were trying to get forklifts, I mean, you 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.360 name it, to try and lift these concrete slabs, it 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.200 was just pushing everything out of the way. So they 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.640 ended up having to bring in, like, you know, the 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.840 most heavy duty construction crane you can imagine to pull 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:47.080 these things up eventually. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.960 So I saw, Chuck that like there were all these 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.920 amazing acts of people of generosity, of heroism, and just 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.040 people coming together. And I also saw from some of 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:01.320 the people who were involved that within our of the tragedy, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.080 the mood did like a one to eighty, and people 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.880 started to want to know what happened, what had gone wrong, 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.760 and who was to blame, because it was very clearly 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.600 something had gone terribly wrong with the structure of those skywalks, 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.320 and people wanted to know why because again, this was 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.680 just such a catastrophic loss of life it was almost incomprehensible. 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.400 But it started to settle in that it had happened 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.880 and that somebody somewhere was to blame and people wanted 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:30.200 to know. 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:31.440 Yeah. 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.360 So what they eventually figured out, and this was after 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:40.720 some pretty amazing investigation by the National Bureau of Standards 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.160 which is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.480 They were I mean they did they X rayed material, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.280 they did metallurgical examinations of steel, they did, you know, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.320 physics tests, They did everything you could imagine to figure 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.440 out what went wrong and what they landed on. It 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.840 turns out they didn't really need to do any of 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.640 those tests. It was a design change that was, as 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.880 it turns out, basically rubber stamped. The original design of 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.040 these walkways that were again two and four were suspended 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.240 above each other, and floor number three, which didn't collapse, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.160 was just offset from that one kind of over the 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.240 center of the atrium. But the original design called for 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.680 these skywalks to be held together with one, you know, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:32.080 group of continuous steel rods that went through both floors, 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.760 and all the sets of these hollow beams threaded with nuts. 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.240 But this was like, you know, forty five feet or 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:42.920 so of threaded rod. And they said, you know what, 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.120 threading wears out, and if you thread a nut forty 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.520 five feet, that's a long way, and eventually by the 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:50.840 time you get to where you want to go that 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:52.120 things are not going to be as strong as it 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:56.160 needs to be. So they changed the design to basically 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.000 hang the second floor from the first the fourth floor 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.520 using two sets of rods instead of one continuous set, 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:08.679 which basically double the weight of what everything was hanging 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:13.280 on on floor four. There's a great YouTube video. I 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.440 believe the guy is English. His name is Tom Scott, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.359 but he got an engineer, this guy named Grady from 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.480 Practical Engineers, who put it like this. Imagine a long 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.880 rope that two friends are hanging on. One person's hanging 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:32.160 above the other. That's fine. Then imagine that same rope 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.119 with the same two people hanging but in this case, 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.760 the second person is hanging from the other person's ankles, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.640 so the total weight is the same, but the stress 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.320 on that first person or in this case, that first 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:47.119 top fourth floor is different. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:47.840 Yeah. 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.080 I saw a guy named Bill Quip Klapman who said 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.919 flagpole instead of rope. So I think that kind of 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:00.040 demonstrates Chuck that because it's such an easy analogy that 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.320 you could have looked at these designs and I mean 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.880 you specifically and me and been like, are you sure 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.480 this is the same as what you guys originally had, 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.320 Like as far as the math goes, it was, I 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:16.280 wouldn't have So it was so radically different, But at 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.200 the same time, it seemed like, yeah, it's a no brainer. 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.800 Of course that's what you're gonna do, because not only 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.480 are those could those threads wear out? Like how you're 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:30.040 gonna have to put the entire skywalk on each of 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:35.080 those six threads, those six hanging rods threaded hanging rods, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.560 Like you're gonna have to slide them down, and of 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.119 course you're gonna damage some of those threads and then 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.560 they're totally useless. You won't be able to screw those 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:44.119 nuts all the way up to the bottom of the 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.600 skywalk any longer. So what you're gonna do? You just 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.440 cut it in half. It makes total sense. It's still 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.760 the same general design. The two skywalks are hanging from 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.760 the ceiling, but like you said, now, the second floor 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.080 skywalk is hanging from the fourth floor skywalk. That was 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:06.640 a catastrophic mistake because the skywalks themselves were in no way, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.720 shape or form designed to hold up their own weight, 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.320 and they were attached on either end to basically portals 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.600 that led to the hallways that continued on the fourth, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.920 second and third floor on either side. Those connections to 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.639 those portals were in no way, shape or form designed 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.440 to hold the walkway up. So I think I said. 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.240 They spanned the entire length of the atrium, which is 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.200 one hundred and twenty feet, So these were one hundred 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:39.560 and twenty feet long skywalks, and they had brass handrails 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.160 at waist high, and then between that and the skywalk 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.000 was class It was super cool looking, super late seventies 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:46.080 early eighties design. 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:46.480 Right. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.639 They were attached to the end hallways on either side, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.160 so they were basically like the hallways were just suddenly 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.520 stripped of everything around them except for the part you 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.360 walked on, and that's what crossed to the tre It's 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.720 pretty cool. And they were attached to the hallways that 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:09.919 continued on either side through portals, and the actual span 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.640 itself was held aloft by three box beams that were 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:19.640 perpendicular to the length of the walkways themselves. Right, So 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.320 you had basically it looked like a kid swing, but 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.040 three of them, and then you had the walkway spanning 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.240 those three things. Does that make sense? 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:29.920 I think so. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.200 So the walkway was held up by those three box 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:39.160 beams that were held aloft each by two hanging rods, 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.720 and it just it just couldn't do it. What's surprising 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.320 to me is that it lasted a full year after 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:47.080 it opened. 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:50.720 You know, yeah, I mean, I guess we could go 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.000 over the load bearing here. That seems to be a 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.160 pretty good place for it. The NBS, like I said, 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:02.040 he was doing the investigating. They you know, they did testing. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.960 They built their own version of this stuff, and they 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.280 went and found that the load bearing capacity for just 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:15.320 one individual connection was eighty one killo newtons, which I've 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:16.200 never heard of before. 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.200 To clear things up, chuck, a kill a newton is 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:23.280 equal to one kilogram meter per second squared, So I'm. 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.359 Sure that clears it up for everybody. Right, And that's 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:28.200 just the you know, that's called the dead low. That's 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:32.600 the way to the structure itself. If you have people 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.080 on it, obviously it's going to be a lot different. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:36.879 And there were a lot of people on this. They 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.400 were up there having a good time and dancing and partying. 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:45.320 They said that would add another eleven killo newtons, So 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:48.080 eventually you get to a total you know, by the 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.000 time it collapsed, a total weight of ninety five killer newtons, 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.119 which was fourteen more than it was even supposed to 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:55.919 hold to begin with. 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.639 Right, that's just like, that's how it was in reality. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.280 The thing that makes it even worse to me is 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:06.080 that that doesn't meet code at all. Like code is 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.320 that you would have to basically double that amount of 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:14.800 load bearing capacity to have passed inspection. And yet these 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:16.119 things passed inspection. 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.400 Oh at the time it was double yes. 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:20.920 Yeah, yeah, that wasn't a change. Like this thing passed 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:26.320 inspection despite the code requiring it to be able to 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.440 support one hundred and eighty one killer newtons. Like you said, 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.879 they were able to support eighty one killer newtons. So 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:38.159 it was a terrible design. And the only explanation was 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.880 that the actual explanation that when they changed that design 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.680 from the singular rods, which is two guys hanging separately 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.080 on a fire pole or a rope rather than hanging 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:52.440 on their ankles, when they changed it, no one did 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.360 the calculations to see if it would hold up. And 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:57.000 that is exactly what happened. 0:22:57.920 --> 0:22:59.399