Sir, you are proof the "these days, people can't pay attention to anything long" is a dirty myth. We are not irritated by length. We are intolerant - of having our time wasted. Know your audience. Tell us what we want to know. And we'll listen - for hours. Because you provide valuable information. No filler. No clickbait. No BS. Just facts. Critical evidence. Clearly communicated. (And that's why we love you.) Thank you!
Still always strive for not saying a single irrelevant word. For example, when changing the marker color there is no need to spell out in words that this task is going to be done. I would say in most places in the US, this building would have been red tagged. Ask yourself why wasn’t it. Follow the money.
No, the guy is right, but hes being way too cautious, for good reason 1. Gen z wants "time blindness" accommodation (basically work whenever they want, be late whenever they want) 2. People don't listen to the details and listen to keywords only 3. People are too much of snowflakes (im offended over you using the wrong pronouns even though you have no way to know which ones are correct or unoffensive, etc.) 4. And more Trust me, im part of gen z and its awful, they cant keep their attention on something that they wanted (the humor is pretty telling)
@@Herlongianno, because ive learned to "overexplain" things because people inevitably ask stuff because of those (as you feel) "irrelevant" words which would be explained by those "irrelevant" words
It sounds like the engineer that designed the repairs was more than careless. I’m betting the building owners will be going after his errors and omissions insurance. Hard to believe the plans were stamped by a P.E. And that the engineer did regular visits to the site. As a small contractor I worked on 3 brick thick townhouse in Wash DC. And by looking at the window bucks there was no guessing about the thickness of the walls.
Agreed ap70621, I was feeling stressed out all throughout the chronologically ordered photos of the contractors work, I feel like its a miracle it stood while they were doing the modifications. Man that picture at 12:01 is MonkaS, and I feel physically uncomfortable looking at 42:28 in fullscreen, it's being held by these frail sticks, it wants to fall on me lol
@@ehsnils actually the slow collapse shows that the original structure was built quite well for its era. The fact that the building was violated in the way it was and still remained standing for roughly a month even though it was screaming for help the whole time shows that it was well constructed originally and recent history of poor maintenance, understanding, and possibly indifference contributed to the collapse as much as anything else.
I'm not at all unhappy that this video ran long, I LEARNED something new. My take away from this, is they had the wrong people looking at the building. They just didn't understand what it was telling them. Due to either laziness or cost considerations it was to little to late to save it.
it really is a testament to how strong that building actually is that it didn't just collapse as soon as they started tearing the structure apart at the base.
I toured the building two weeks before it collapsed, and would've been neighbors with one of the souls that died if I didn't get accepted at another apartment complex. We can't thank you enough for going into detail about this investigation. We can't let corruption slide.
Years ago I also toured the building and was very close to moving there until I decided to take a place closer to where I work. Even when I looked at it, it was very lipstick on a pig. The apartment they showed me had new appliances and fresh paint on a clearly declining structure.
@@pjaypender1009 that's the perfect description for it! There looked like there was zero maintenance in the hallways and elevator too...the worst part was how many kids and families I saw just in touring a few apartments
Just to add insult to injury GEICO has twice refused to honor the rental insurance of one of the tenants. The insurance adjuster told her she should have gone back into the building to get her stuff since her part of the building did not collapse. Story is on our local subreddit and a couple of local outlets.
F that, Whoever at Geico said that should have to go in and get her stuff themselves. I wouldn't go anywhere near that building no matter what any engineer said. This should be made more public. You pay month after month and they expect you to go into a building that's partially collapsed. Would they want someone they cared about to go in.
*Wow* I hope the local news manages to get it to pick up enough steam to shame that company into compliance. Pretty sure no one would *let* any of the tenants go back in there due to the risk as that's a fairly SOP for these things..
Your constraint is amazing. I was internally screaming watching this. I’ve had masonry tradespeople who would know what to do with this without any engineering input. I’ve seen them do such jobs. I know that their lead guy would go paper-white-faced upon seeing this. It’s so infuriatingly crazy what went on with all those “repairs”.
I will never look at an old multistory brick building the same in the future. There is so much subtlety to recognizing the structural issues associated with an old structure, it takes very careful consideration in the care and eventual remediation (if that is the course chosen) to make these structures safe and useful going forward.
Agree. Not being a structural engineer, I’ve learned a thing or two by watching these videos. I can see that one would have to understand (a building whisperer if you will🤫) how the whole building integrates in order to make a repair such as this.
Yes! I was missing the new content so much I went and watched an old episode last night. Now I feel like it was good luck because he released a new one today. Lol
That photograph of the deformed window from the inside is terrifying. I don't understand how that didn't trigger an evacuation, it seems so clear that the structure of the building is in major trouble.
Tenants were posting images of building deflection within their units prior to the collapse. Any reasonably competent facility manager would have been screaming for an evacuation.
It's sad but money rules the world. For contracters, for building owners, governments. Btw did you know your last name means brick in Dutch? How is it possible a steen (brick) is reacting on a failing brickbuilding? Probably a coincidence... but lol ;-)
its amazing it held together so long. also sad that they bulldozed the entire structure, since the other half of the building is not supported this way and was needlessly razed. seems like an emotional decision, not based on any rational analysis.
@timothystevenhoward trust me, they will be able to spend less for something new that can make them more money than upgrading the original. Probably get twice as many floors at triple the rent. Given the changes in building codes, materials and techniques, they are probably secretly thrilled to have a fresh start.
@@timothystevenhoward This was an evidence tampering decision. It's pretty clear the owners of this building knew the structure was dangerous and were choosing not to spend money to fix it, evacuate the people they were endangering, or take any actions to uphold their responsibilities as landowners. They are criminals, and should be in prison or hanging from lamp posts. Demolishing instantly prevents any further evidence of their malfeasance from being uncovered.
It's a miracle the thing didn't collapse sooner given all the structural brick that had already failed (crumbling, pulverizing, falling, etc) and was no longer bearing loads above, forcing adjacent areas (which may not be in much better condition) to carry both loads, thus contributing to their failure, and repeat. There's only so much support that you can remove over time before gravity does its thing on everything above.
We can criticize the way the building was originally constructed back in the 1900's, without steel columns...but it is impressive that the building actually did give PLENTY of warning before it collapsed. I can't believe it wasn't evacuated.
Ditto on everybody's "don't apologize for the long video", comments. I don't know of any other engineering channel able to keep me glued to the video screen until the end like this one does. Very educational. You make things make sense! Thanks!
Discovered your channel after Surfside. Your videos are amazing. Detailed and scientific, but explained well enough for anyone to understand. Thank you!
Classic case of seeing what one wants to see, while overlooking things that should be obvious. Reminds me of years ago when I was presented a problem at my place of employment. There was a tool that, on occasion, when being dismantled, would break. This was costly, like about $10,000/time. All the people who had dealt with this for years attributed it to carelessness on behalf of those taking the tool apart. I investigated. The design engineer had made it virtually impossible to put ANY bending moment on the part being removed. That is what it would have taken, IF it was carelessness, as they thought. I could see that something else was in play. I looked at records of when the tool had been run. There were two conditions that both had to be met, before the tool was broken upon disassembly. High heat, and high pressure. One without the other was not sufficient. Clearly there was something else going on. Turns out an insulator material was not up to the task. It would deform when both high heat and pressure were there, but was strong enough when one or the other was not present. The deformation made it impossible to remove the tool without breakage.
As a structural engineer I really love the longer format, detailed videos you produce. This was fascinating, I've heard about multiple-wythe brick construction but I've never dealt with it firsthand. Hopefully other engineers/contractors can watch part 1 & 2 to educate themselves about this method of construction and the dangers of modifying it, hopefully avoiding another similar unnecessary disaster.
I as an EE appreciate the 'deep dive' taken in the science of brick and steel beam building analysis and repair ... as mentioned above, I will never look at a brick structure the same again.
yes, I recall the instructor in my structures class talking about it. There was some ancient reference about how thick to make a supporting wall. I never knew anyone who could do it.. I'm pretty sure that modern structures programs don't have this, do they?
@@Lanedl1 -- In my 46 year career, I've seen quite a few of these structural brick walls. Most are keyed together to stay solid and back up to the facade, but I have also seen a few where the inside was basically a dumpster full of brick and mortar chunks with no rhyme or reason. A lot of sketchy stuff went on back in the day, and of course when they were new they didn't give up their secrets. After seeing everything I've seen over the years, I wouldn't take one of these old brick money pits if I could have it for free. There is a reason I say "they don't build them like they used to" but it doesn't mean what most people would think it means. The same applies to old farm houses, and just about everything else. Until modern dimensional lumber came on the scene with span and load ratings, it was like the wild west out there.
@@smartysmarty1714 My grandfather, who was a master carpenter, used to laugh about "they don't build 'em as well as they used to". He said only the well built ones were still standing, the bad ones had fallen and we just don't see them.
Kudos to the contractor who refused to do just a "face" repair. When the owner refused his bid to do it right, he refused the job. I'll bet he's SOOOOOO glad he did!
i'm not even an engineering but it would have taken a few mins to figure that out with a portable x ray machine or more specifically a "through contact wall radar survey device" you see building contractors use to assess stress cracks in concrete , find conduits etc etc and stuff would have given you the answer. or heck probably even a stud finder/metal detector could do it if it was strong enough to get through the brick.
There's a video from two months before this collapse of a facade coming away from the wall of an apartment building in New York. The building was immediately evacuated. I don't understand why this one wasn't also. The negligence from all parties is astounding.
No wonder the mayor wanted his buddy's apartment demolished right away. The investigation has clearly turned it from negligence to gross negligence, incompetence, and reckless disregard for human life, causing injury, death, and loss of home/possessions.
I live in Davenport. We've been calling all of this out since it happened. Had we not shown up to protest in front of City Hall (across from the collapsed building, ironically) they would have moved ahead with the demolition before the bodies were even recovered. (Mind you, the stuff really hit the fan when it was discovered, to our horror, that there was still a person inside that building, along with numerous pets - which were, finally, rescued.) The bodies remained underneath the rubble for days.
In short, due to a lack of proper shoring while doing the repair work. They took a structure that was designed to handle vertical loads. And made it take diagonal ones. Shearing the structural brick and causing to crumble
I'm just an old woman with zero training. But as I watched your explanation I understood because you were special plain language and show what was happening. As I watched I began feeling physically ill because people were allowed to continue living there. By the end I was having to fight off going into hysteria over the lives lost. From the news at the time this was happening I remember a statement that this was low income housing and some homeless were given shelter to live there. Part of me now wonders if the people were allowed to continue living there because "they are poor ". It is clear that our society doesn't think the poor matter. I am old and sick but I'm trying to figure out out how to determine if the same sorts of situations could be developing in my own area. And also where to inquire about these things in my small town. I thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I could be way off base here, but I think people were allowed to continue to live in the building, not (directly) because they were poor, but because the building owner(s) was a money grubbing slumlord. It costs big money to make these repairs... It also brings big attention when you evac a building (think state/city inspectors) and your building, the thing you own/possibly owe money on could be forcibly condemned and your income/equity is gone and we all know that is far more important than human life /sarcasm.... The problem with most situations starts from the top - management or leadership in the workforce/military and so on. Here it was ownership. It probably started when they bought the lame duck building without doing due diligence on the condition of the building. Would you buy a house without a thorough inspection by a competent party? Their lack of concern and understanding is further shown by firing the first contractor who raised concern/alarm and said that it would cost even more and followed through until the end when after the work was completed and the facade was sloughing off. Any prudent person/group would have the building or at a minimum, the units in that area evac'ed. But no, money/income is more important. I hope that the owner(s) and engineer are made to see consequences for their inaction and/or bad judgement calls.
"l am an old woman named after my mother My old man is another child that's grown old lf dreams were lightning, and thunder were desire This old house would have [fallen] down a long time ago" With apologies to John Prine
This was amazing especially about the load shifting and I'll tell you why. I lived in an older building with a partially exposed underground parking structure held up by steel ibeams connected to brick walls. We got a blizzard that dumped 2' of snow. The garage roof had roughly 50' of it down the length covered in 8' of snow (drifts..etc), plus all the snow on the roof. During that storm three of the support steel pylons fell OFF their support due to the weight of the snow and the rust that had eaten them. The entire corner of the 2 story building fell about 4" when the supports fell. The apartment management company (truly shady operation) called out a structural engineer, I was there and heard him say: this needs to be addressed immediately. Was it? No. I left as soon as I could. Found out later the management company collected the insurance money and their fix was to put up 2 floor jacks. Nothing was said to the residents ever. Despite the concrete falling off the walls of the stairway that led to the underground parking garage.
I've been a carpenter contractor for 46 years, and have worked on many of these old brick buildings, so maybe I have a bit of an advantage when I say definitively that the engineer in charge of this project was a complete and total SCREAMING IDIOT. And his contractor wasn't far behind. I've had to challenge many, many drawings and "game plans" for similar reasons because sometimes what they draw will never work. This catastrophe could have been avoided through simple common sense. They didn't even have to be all that experienced....just smarter than your average bucket of bricks. It's an actual miracle that this thing didn't cave in on the contractors while they were working on it. I'd be willing to bet it was making strange popping sounds all day long...
I fear that like is common in the USA, the individual will be blamed. Everything will be put on the engineer and the contractor. But the real problem is that these people were allowed to do their work with apparently insufficient training, awareness or regulation. The USA is very good at blaming the individual and not fixing the underlying system that put that individual in that position. Laws and regulations should change. Not just in Iowa, but all across the country. Better trained engineers and constructors should be required to prevent this from happening again.
@@rogerwilco2 --- While I sympathize with your position and understand what you're implying, there are tens of thousands of engineers and contractors in the US that wouldn't have made these mistakes. In essence, two stupid ones were chosen here, and I can't see how you could have a system in place that teaches away stupidity (and greed). Moreover, an engineer who is confused KNOWS he's confused and should be smart enough to ask for senior advice or walk away from the project, thus making him responsible for his own actions. Blaming "the system" never works. Individuals need to take responsibility for their mistakes.
Lived in an apt building in this same town, 40 yrs ago. We'd had a massive snowstorm, ceiling kept making weird agony sounds. (Top floor). We called manager with worry that it should be inspected. "It'll be fine" she said. Three days later a wooden beam came thru the dining room ceiling! Since my roomie and I had complained first (it was a big complex and others had called about agony sounds after storm) we were moved into model apartment. Everybody else had to move to cheap apartments or cheap hotel rooms. Apt company did pay rent. 'Cause it turned out instead of solid beams the contractor had somehow connected shorter ones. (Don't remember exactly.) ALL the buildings had to have their roofs rebuilt, about 12 big buildings. We talked to a city inspector who was working, and in a very round about way he gave us reason to think he thought the original inspector was an incompetent SOB.
@@smartysmarty1714 An idiot was chosen... By who, friend? By what method (or indeed system) was the idiot chosen over the competent worker? I've worked for a company before. I can guess. Idiots are cheap. Putting idiots in charge though is something the corp needs to be personally responsible for. What you're suggesting goes against what you believe, too. If you think it's impossible to make a system that prevents greed and idiots, then you can't believe that the solution is to make sure every single person makes the smart and wholesome choice. You need to make a system which works even with idiots in it, which verifies and works beyond the individual (which is how regulation works). Personal responsibility only works if you believe every single person is in fact responsible and trustworthy. They're not. So you need more than personal honor. If you think there are engineers who are not responsible and who are not honest, no amount of personal responsibility and honesty will work! You need to look at your society and think hard about how to ACTUALLY do things right. And that almost always means starting with reforming the system. If you believe you can't train out dumb then you also believe in reforming the system. You've just been taught otherwise, somehow.
Breaking down a complex situation for those of us that don’t have your qualifications, into something we can fully understand, is what makes these dissections so interesting. Thank you for your time and effort. Regards from OZ 🇦🇺
Future engineers need you as in instructor. I would take a whole semester with you just to go over engineering failures. A) how to spot the failures and B) what could have been done to prevent it. You're an amazing teacher, even if this is just what you do for work. Being smart doesn't always mean people can convey it to others. You do a phenomenal job of explaining it.
@@rcpmac But it's different to sit in a classroom and to be able to have conversations with the professor and fellow classmates. I absolutely love his videos. But we need engineers that are as smart as him entering the field, and not learning from the ones that like to take short cuts that cause these catastrophes.
@@SandrA-hr5zk In my experience, it's the difference between undergrad and grad school. Undergrad is closer to high-school where the instructor knows you didn't read the text book, so has to go over what's already there. Meanwhile, in one of my grad school classes the instructor had us read 100 pages of "The Goal" before our next class so we could talk about it.
This was an excellent video. It’s like a case study happening almost in real time. And as a naval architect, it’s always interesting to learn about how structures on land work, especially because masonry structures behave so differently from steel. Thank you!
Another fantastic video, Josh. Gripping. Am always excited when I get a heads-up you’ve posted something new. Don’t apologise for the length - I love your clarity and focus and your measured delivery. Thank you.
Wow you did it again! This presentation is like what you did for me with the Champlain Towers collapse. It made me see how complex and detailed analysis is needed BEFORE the building falls down in addition to after. Thanks.
I always come away from Josh's videos so much smarter. You truly one of the best teachers I have ever witnessed and you have ignited my interest in engineering and desire to forensically analyze these building failures. Thank you Josh.
I'm not an Engineer. Well I have some Firefighting Engineering Credentials. Including some classes and lots of training on inspecting a building, reading a building and knowing when to get the hell out of a building, or to not go in. I've spent some light duty time doing Code Enforcement and inspections. So by no means a Civil or Structural Engineer. But a fairly well educated layman. These pictures scare the hell out of me. And I think what scares me more is there would have been a real Engineer standing there telling me that I was worrying over nothing. One of the tricks I was always taught for fast assessment of a building when pulling up on a scene is to quickly look for the buildings lines. Find the corners, find the window frames and doors. Is everything still plum? At proper straight lines and perpendicular to each other. No Curves is a big one. Do all the windows line up as expected are door frames straight? This is just the quick 123 test you do as you are walking up to any unknown building on a fire call. And boy would this fail my quick test. Setting eyes on the interior face of the supporting walls. That's the point where you very gently get your crew to take careful babysteps to the nearest exit while you have the trucks start blowing the evacuate alarm. That stuff going on at 34:10 I would have spotted that, in the dark. And I'm a complete idiot with structures.
Well, what to say here. This looks like Amateur Night for Engineers. This is what happens when jobs are carried out to save cost. I`ve done many such refurbs in my time and I wouldn`t go near this without a custom made steel support structure to take all the floor loads away from the brickwork. Doesn`t need to cover the whole facade, it can be carried out in sections. Trying to do this with strongbacks and props tied together is possible if you know what you are doing and have a capable engineer on board. I`ve dropped the spine wall on a ten storey building but I relied on more than good will to hold it up till the new structure was in place. The photo with those lightweight props under the window heads tells me all I need to know. Thanks again for a very interesting two parter!
I hope the city officials, engineer, and owner, all of whom are responsible for this murderous idiocy, go to jail. No care for their craft, for their responsibilities, and for the human lives their decisions affect. Thank you for making these videos, you are amazing at explaining complex topics and breaking them down into understandable chunks. Still, no matter how good you are at explaining - it's disturbing how intuitive this structural problem here is. It should be obvious to any random person, that you cannot just assume a 100-years-old brick wall is supported by beams, and that you cannot just leave entire brick wall segments largely unsupported, and that the failure signs shown in the images are obvious indications of a major structural issue.
Just have to say this as basically an anonymous commenter. If you had been in the basement of that building in the last 2 to 5 years you would not question why they demolished it. There were many structural concerns raised about that building from contractors that had gone in there to do various forms of work they were all ignored and purposely not documented. That's all I can say.
You should be teaching at a top engineering school. I'm an electrical engineer with an interest in civil and structural engineering. This video was a great "lesson" on load transfers and stress flows. Well done!
Josh, if one of your clients is willing to allow you to share your process in your day to day practice, I think it would be extremely educational. How do you keep an open mind and avoid confirmation bias? What errors by other engineers do you most commonly run into? @thatclintguy If you have an interest in civil and structural engineering and haven’t watched his videos on the Champlain Tower collapse, I highly recommend watching them. I understand Josh has his own firm that is busy due to the new rules put in place to prevent another CTS from happening, but whatever can be done for Josh to teach the most engineers is what I want for the sake of my own safety!
As a citizen of the United States, and of Davenport, Iowa, I just want to thank you for the time and effort that you put into this excellent presentation, particularly regarding the failure of providing adequate structural supports. A sixth lawsuit has recently been filed; I suspect it will not be the last. (The warnings, and shoddy workmanship have been noted.) Parts 1 & 2 have been shared to one of our local pages dedicated to the collapse and the corruption.
Quote from the mason that warned people about the imminent collapse: ""Andrew contacted us to give them a bid on the back of the building to repair the exterior masonry that was crumbling and falling," Shaffer said. "Our bid was to support the building all the way up, replace the section of wall on the inside that was missing and then redo the façade of the brick on the outside." So it appears that the (higher bidding) trades were aware they needed to properly shore the whole load, it's bizarre to me that an engineer wouldn't understand or recognize that. Actually, I think if you took a random person off the street and explained that you wanted to cut away an entire section of a large building wall at the base, their first question would be "how do you support it so it doesn't fall down?"
Really sad we will be seeing less of you in the next few months, but I'm super thankful for all the time you spent to put these together. Really makes a huge difference even as just a homeowner, I'm now constantly aware of structures I'm in and paying close attention to how my own house moves or shifts.
BUILDING INTEGRITY ! This is the kind of thing the internet should be doing ... sharing REAL information and cogent analysis of what went wrong so that WE THE PEOPLE can LEARN from mistakes and IMPROVE going forward. Sadly too much of the internet is cluttered with false and misleading babble.
Thank you so much for this video and all of your hard work producing the content on your channel. My construction is basically limited to decks and small projects. I’ve always tried to do the best job and give my clients a quality project. Your analysis of building failure is really helpful as you point out many factors that a lot of contractors might not see. Because I tend to slightly overbuild, I’ve never had any issues with anything I’ve built. Hopefully everyone in the construction trades can learn from these very educational videos. I’m looking forward to the next episode.
Creators have proven long form works if and only if they are good at being a great teacher or provide something interesting and worth listening to or learning about. You are an example of that. Take as long as you need.
I am an engineer and I love this channel. Brilliant, clear, and honest explanations of physical facts. What happened to the engineer that designed the repair that apparently lead to the subsequent colapse?
If you show a single one of these images to a German building inspector the inhabitants would be notified of his decision by the arrival of the Feuerwehr 10 minutes later and evacuated within 30 minutes...
Dude, I *love* your long explanations. I know nothing about structural engineering, but as a mathy person who's fascinated by how things fail (and thus secondarily how they work at all in the first place), this, like all your videos, was awesome.
Excellent as usual Josh. I have followed your TH-cam presentations for some time now, starting with the Surf side collapse. What I'm also looking forward to is any follow-up on the Milleniuim Tower in San Fransisco. As a retired consulting electrical and mechanical engineer I worked with several different structural engineers in the design and construction of commercial buildings. I remember during my early years I worked with a structural engineer in North Dakota. As a young inexperienced engineer I asked him if his design would "work". His answer was " I hope not". He patiently explained to me that work was force through distance, and he " didn't want anything to move". Keep up the good work.
Hi Josh, Hope all is well. Just wanted to drop a note to let you know how much I've appreciated this channel over the past few years. I was looking to see if you had a reaction to the NIST information dump about Surfside. Mostly it seems to completely validate what you hypothesized.
Interesting that you and I reached the same conclusions. Having worked for a company that did sheeting, suring, pile driving and underpinning, I got to see the correct ways to consolidate loads without losing the structure or damaging it. As I see it the only way to accomplish the necessary work was to vacate all the apartements in the affected area so as to allow for installation of temporary support from the ground all the way up, then to replace existing support. In my mind there was a reluctance by the owner to do this correctly as it would have caused a loss of cash flow from those apartments where work was required. I don't see any other way to correct the decay without this procedure. And it might have entailed doing this along the entire perimeter of the building wherever support columns existed. Essentially, rebuilding the structure with new support, throughout. And at that point you have to ask yourself, as the owner, is it worth saving the building at all. But to allow occupancy until the demise occurred is criminal, in my mind. Don't know who paid the engineer who made recommendations but there seems a bias in his opinion or even worse, perhaps a lack of knowledge.
I run a small business in underpinning, mini piling(restricted access), foundation repair, structural steel and concrete work and i have seen some bad situations but seeing the picture of the windowframe bulging inwards would put me in "shit is hitting the fan, big time" mode and steel props and shoring would be going in the same day. And all the plasterboad and everything infront of the structural brickwork would go out to see whats happening
Thank you so much for these videos! My background is in engineering (BEng in IT & MSc in EE; structural and mechanical only by practice), however, I've spent most of my professional career so far in administrative and financial roles. Nothing wrong in them, I don't mean that, but this drive you show, the need to understand how things work, and how we may or may not make them work, really makes me to want to get back into my roots.
Hi Josh, we’ve not heard from you for a long time. I hope you’re well. I really enjoyed your videos and hope nothing untoward has befallen you. Take care.
prayers to anyone who lost their life here. relative to the construction, OMG, what crappy construction methods. looks like the best thing to happen to that building was for it to have collapsed. Thank you for taking the time to go through all the details. Your knowledge is fascinating. keep up the good work.
On a much smaller scale, I called in some contractors to look at a house built around 1898 and got a quote for some work. The price wasn't too bad, but something didn't sit quite right with me. So I called out a retired contractor friend who'd done a lot of work on older houses. His estimate of repairs was triple what the original contractor's was and it wasn't because he was trying to be expensive. It's because his eyes saw things that needed fixing that the contractors who work on more modern houses didn't even notice or didn't know about.
Excellent content! I commented about your conretes worst enemy video earlier this year, and you replied. It was a pleasure to chat with you. I recommend your channel all the time, and have learned alot from you! Thank you.
@@BuildingIntegrityone thing that stands out is the hollow bricks (at 42' 24") used in the "structural" part of the wall. Those hollow facing bricks should never be in the structural part of any wall especially of multiple stories.. It explains why as they fracture the broken pieces no longer fill the space and collapse leaving a cavity - that was initially very puzzling, where did the space come from?. Solid bricks would have cracked/ shifted but still filled the space. It could well be this building was catastrophically doomed from these hollow bricks failing before the repair process. Another thing to note is the new addition of what looks like new steel studding to support drywall inside (at 40' 52"). This means drilling or more likely shooting anchors into the "structural brick" part of the wall to install it. Such drilling/shooting will severely weaken those thin walled hollow bricks over the whole wall. That would be another aspect to examine in detail.
Fantastic video, as always. Definitely one of my must-watch channels on TH-cam. Have a thought for a 'Part 3' in this series: At various points during the timeline leading up to the collapse, what would your recommendation have been to repair the building correctly? And at what point do you think the building passed the proverbial "point of no return?" And also at what point should the building have been evacuated?
The engineer who was having the Building get away from him, he needed to ask other engineer friends to take a fresh look at the Building. He needed fresh sets of eyes to look at these escalating problems.
Incredible video. Thorough, not long, extremely informative and evidence based. It’s a shame that every municipality doesn’t have a building engineer like you on staff to catch these tragic oversights.
It's exactly this sort of analysis that should have been done before starting work. This sort of half arsed approach is far more common than people realise. People often think they know more than they do. Great video
Excellent analysis! I am shocked at the original repair design. I am an engineer from completely different field but I can follow the logic. I am also amazed by the lack of the attention by the repair design to the loads. My neighbour has his brick wall little two storey house modified and they put more attention to transferring the loads from the wall above while modifying the window opening. And here you have the huge, complicated building and design that doesn't take the wall thickness into account.
Josh, this was very engaging, and highly detailed and entertaining, I learned so much!! Please never apologize for length. When things are important, and great info, it is limitless and fascinating. I hope you submit this to the city, over there to take a look at it, because they seem to not have the capability in their local builders, inspectors, and contractors, to know what they are doing. this is everything that happened, that they need to know, and they did not need to tear the rest of that building down, like they did. This incident is horrific, as folks have died. so terrible.
As always, a thorough and believable analysis of what went wrong in this collapsed building and in the professionals (private and city) responsible for this disaster. I just watched the short but detailed TH-cam video by Mike Bell and he was able to slow down the video of the building's final 9 minute slow-mo collapse. This showed two major things: 1) that second-by-second you could see the silly wooden "braces" were actually moving and zinging before the fall, and 2) that there were about 6 other noticeable puffs of dust indicating bricks as they turned into powder and the building load shifted to other bricks that then powdered and crushed. One news article I read on-llne indicated that the actual repair work on the building was done by a masonry company owned by the building's owner, Andrew Wold,. Wold is being sued by at least 6 parties for negligence...a real "bad actor" as you say Josh.
Another fine post Josh! Thank you so much. A few blocks away from me, the entire brick side of a masonry 2-story house peeled off last week; a similar situation where material was falling into the void between the structural block and the brick facade.
We heard a rumble one evening, thought it was a rather loud roll of isolated thunder, and a few days later I walked past the cause- the top 2/3 of the outer sandstone layer on one end of a terrace of houses had fallen off. Onto a few cars, which were rather squashed. The terrace was 2-storey and would probably be about 100-120 years old. It took some time to rebuild it, one hopes they put some hefty stainless steel ties in it to tie it to the existing wall...... The inner wall, mostly brick, with chimney masonry that was rather interesting, looked in excellent condition, didn't look to have moved at all.
31:20 I'm not an engineer, but a designer, this is something new I learnt today, caught me by surprise of how these brick building works, it isn't like regular steel structure or re-enforced concrete structure, the loads aren't transferred point to point, but more of flowing around.
Josh, never apologize for going long on your videos, us less than knowledgeable folks love your in-depth explanations. This forensic investigation is some of your finest yet, Thank you.
Brilliant analysis and investigation sleuth. I'm in construction and this an amazing lesson from you. I learned a lot. If I ever see a droopy window I will run ada fast as I can. 👏👏👏👏
This was absolutely fascinating…and chilling. Engineers and contractors have lives in their hands. If they are careless or incompetent, those lives could be lost. It sounds like the primary fault is the bad engineering design of the “repairs,” which destabilized the whole side of the building; disregarding of obvious warning signs (which were actually photographed!); and failure to alert tenants and workers to the danger. The engineering plans plainly showed both total lack of understanding of the building’s weight-bearing structure and a fatal lack of basic engineering competence in shoring the wall. I’m not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like at least part of the blame must fall on the engineering company because their modifications not only failed to repair the building, they actively triggered the collapse. It would probably have happened eventually without their intervention because the structural brick was crumbling, but they made it happen very quickly and did not give warnings. A sad irony that the “repairs,” complete with a spiffy new cosmetic façade and paint job, were so incompetently done that they were the final straw that brought down that wall. And that so many obvious red flags warning of imminent collapse, and also insistent verbal warnings by a credible witness with masonry experience, were all ignored.
The lack of awareness of the engineer of building techniques in the early 20th century seems bizarre to me - I am neither an engineer, nor in the construction business, but even I am aware that 100-120 years ago, it was common for buildings up to 10 storeys to be built with a load-bearing perimeter wall. I don't even know _how_ I know, but I had assumed it was common knowledge that that was how buildings were built back then.
This wall modification was done and NO ONE noticed that the two 12'x6' window openings that had the brick façade over them had NO structural brick in them? WTH?
The psychological/political issues deserve some attention. An engineer is paid (sometimes) to write a report that suits the client. The paragraph the began "The main takeaway..." is a screaming code word for what the unsophisticated client demanded to hear. Integrity is corrupted by magical and complacent thinking. Paraphrasing: A man will believe anything if his paycheck depends on it.
Geez. I guess it's a testament to how well the building was built that this collapse didn't drag down the rest of it. What little I know of structural engineering comes from your channel, Josh, but I have a feeling that a more modern building would still be standing after this. (Maybe CTS illustrated this?)
Fascinating!!! Never would I have imagined the problems with the single vs multi story shoring, it's excellent to be able to learn from an expert in the field. Thank you :)
Thank you for taking time to share the analysis. It is too bad the contractor was not in a position to have more input into the design of the remodeling. I’ll bet the laborers on the job could easily look up and intuitively understand that several stories of unsupported layers of brick between the new CMU wall sections wasn’t going to stay floating there for long. This disaster shows that bilateral communication channels need to be built into projects like this so that oversights don’t become disasters.
Thanks for making this video. I am always a fan of your videos. I learned many new things as a structural engineer. Just a quick opinion. From 31:15, what I understood was that replacing the old structural brick part with post shoring affects the loading path of the above floor. However, if we solely consider this loading path change, and set aside all other aspects of this building, if the post shorings on the first floor are sufficient to replace the demolished structural brick, the loading path above shouldn't change significantly. If you want to modify a corner column on the first floor of the 10-story building, you don't need to post shore all the way up the 10 stories, but rather provide enough shoring to the adjacent area of the column on the first floor during construction. I am happy to hear different opinions.
After viewing the first part of the investigation, I questioned why the original structural engineer didn't use a full steel frame as opposed to relying on a thick brick wall for load bearing. Then realizing the build lasted 106 years and didn't fall down until an improper repair was made makes the case for the brick load bearing wall. Perhaps this design was standard practice at the time it was built.
Incredible analysis. This kind of rigor and detail is what separates good content from "most everything else". I usually relax through 45+ minute videos, but this one had me on the edge of my seat, the *whole time*. Terrific video, thanks for doing this hard work.
Have you looked more deeply into the early history of the building? Because I suspect those bricked in windows on the west face were originally loading bay doors. The tall thin profile fits the shape of a turn of the last century horse-drawn cargo lorry. The location in the building, at the rear and immediately below the less desirable service quarters also fits. Then, as now, a loading dock area would have been noisy and smelly and not something you would have wanted around the guests. It would also explain why they, and none of the windows around them, were bricked in when the area went out of use. If this is the case, there could have been very old cumulative damage in the area from decades of minor collisions, and cargo and trash being hauled in and out.
There was recently a partial building collapse in a neighboring county, and the building is constructed similar to this one, with the beams (wood, in this instance,) bearing directly on the brick wall, which collapsed. This is a fantastic video series about this incident in Iowa, and you've absolutely earned yourself another subscriber!
Your content shows the dire need of competent structural engineers, as they save lives!! It is sad with news of buildings falling over, that all of that could have been prevented. Very sad.
Sir, you are proof the "these days, people can't pay attention to anything long" is a dirty myth. We are not irritated by length. We are intolerant - of having our time wasted. Know your audience. Tell us what we want to know. And we'll listen - for hours. Because you provide valuable information. No filler. No clickbait. No BS. Just facts. Critical evidence. Clearly communicated. (And that's why we love you.) Thank you!
Agreed. WHY neither party put verticle support beams along the inside prior to construction remains a serious mystery...
Still always strive for not saying a single irrelevant word. For example, when changing the marker color there is no need to spell out in words that this task is going to be done.
I would say in most places in the US, this building would have been red tagged. Ask yourself why wasn’t it. Follow the money.
No, the guy is right, but hes being way too cautious, for good reason
1. Gen z wants "time blindness" accommodation (basically work whenever they want, be late whenever they want)
2. People don't listen to the details and listen to keywords only
3. People are too much of snowflakes (im offended over you using the wrong pronouns even though you have no way to know which ones are correct or unoffensive, etc.)
4. And more
Trust me, im part of gen z and its awful, they cant keep their attention on something that they wanted (the humor is pretty telling)
@@Herlongianno, because ive learned to "overexplain" things because people inevitably ask stuff because of those (as you feel) "irrelevant" words which would be explained by those "irrelevant" words
It sounds like the engineer that designed the repairs was more than careless. I’m betting the building owners will be going after his errors and omissions insurance. Hard to believe the plans were stamped by a P.E. And that the engineer did regular visits to the site. As a small contractor I worked on 3 brick thick townhouse in Wash DC. And by looking at the window bucks there was no guessing about the thickness of the walls.
Another instance of my thoughts changing from, "How did this building fall?" to "How was this building standing?"
To be honest I'm amazed with the original engineering. But no mind is great enough to build something that survives a overconfident idiot.
A jenga tower would be more secure and stable
Agreed ap70621, I was feeling stressed out all throughout the chronologically ordered photos of the contractors work, I feel like its a miracle it stood while they were doing the modifications.
Man that picture at 12:01 is MonkaS, and I feel physically uncomfortable looking at 42:28 in fullscreen, it's being held by these frail sticks, it wants to fall on me lol
and (for me) "people are going to jail..."
@@ehsnils actually the slow collapse shows that the original structure was built quite well for its era. The fact that the building was violated in the way it was and still remained standing for roughly a month even though it was screaming for help the whole time shows that it was well constructed originally and recent history of poor maintenance, understanding, and possibly indifference contributed to the collapse as much as anything else.
Don't apologize for going long. You do it to make sure we get it and it's a brilliant job.
my nigga Jesus Christina
Right? I didn't even notice until I read this, then glanced at the time and went "oh wow" 😅
100% This is why we are here
Agreed
I'm not at all unhappy that this video ran long, I LEARNED something new. My take away from this, is they had the wrong people looking at the building. They just didn't understand what it was telling them. Due to either laziness or cost considerations it was to little to late to save it.
it really is a testament to how strong that building actually is that it didn't just collapse as soon as they started tearing the structure apart at the base.
right? relly impressive.
I toured the building two weeks before it collapsed, and would've been neighbors with one of the souls that died if I didn't get accepted at another apartment complex. We can't thank you enough for going into detail about this investigation. We can't let corruption slide.
Years ago I also toured the building and was very close to moving there until I decided to take a place closer to where I work. Even when I looked at it, it was very lipstick on a pig. The apartment they showed me had new appliances and fresh paint on a clearly declining structure.
@@pjaypender1009 that's the perfect description for it! There looked like there was zero maintenance in the hallways and elevator too...the worst part was how many kids and families I saw just in touring a few apartments
Just to add insult to injury GEICO has twice refused to honor the rental insurance of one of the tenants. The insurance adjuster told her she should have gone back into the building to get her stuff since her part of the building did not collapse. Story is on our local subreddit and a couple of local outlets.
WOW 😡
F that, Whoever at Geico said that should have to go in and get her stuff themselves. I wouldn't go anywhere near that building no matter what any engineer said. This should be made more public. You pay month after month and they expect you to go into a building that's partially collapsed. Would they want someone they cared about to go in.
Renter's and homeowner's insurance are scams from day one. This response is to be expected as standard.
Nice
*Wow* I hope the local news manages to get it to pick up enough steam to shame that company into compliance. Pretty sure no one would *let* any of the tenants go back in there due to the risk as that's a fairly SOP for these things..
Your constraint is amazing. I was internally screaming watching this. I’ve had masonry tradespeople who would know what to do with this without any engineering input. I’ve seen them do such jobs. I know that their lead guy would go paper-white-faced upon seeing this. It’s so infuriatingly crazy what went on with all those “repairs”.
Literally the best engineering channel. Always excited for a fresh Building Integrity video.
Thanks!
I will never look at an old multistory brick building the same in the future. There is so much subtlety to recognizing the structural issues associated with an old structure, it takes very careful consideration in the care and eventual remediation (if that is the course chosen) to make these structures safe and useful going forward.
You missuse the word "literally", and so does Josh (regularly!).
Agree. Not being a structural engineer, I’ve learned a thing or two by watching these videos. I can see that one would have to understand (a building whisperer if you will🤫) how the whole building integrates in order to make a repair such as this.
Yes! I was missing the new content so much I went and watched an old episode last night. Now I feel like it was good luck because he released a new one today. Lol
That photograph of the deformed window from the inside is terrifying. I don't understand how that didn't trigger an evacuation, it seems so clear that the structure of the building is in major trouble.
Tenants were posting images of building deflection within their units prior to the collapse. Any reasonably competent facility manager would have been screaming for an evacuation.
Yeah, there’s something about a melting window that makes me want to leave the building.
It's sad but money rules the world. For contracters, for building owners, governments.
Btw did you know your last name means brick in Dutch? How is it possible a steen (brick) is reacting on a failing brickbuilding? Probably a coincidence... but lol ;-)
The ability for brick masonry to shift load paths so far like that is impressive. And it gave so much warning before throwing in the trowel.
its amazing it held together so long. also sad that they bulldozed the entire structure, since the other half of the building is not supported this way and was needlessly razed. seems like an emotional decision, not based on any rational analysis.
@timothystevenhoward trust me, they will be able to spend less for something new that can make them more money than upgrading the original. Probably get twice as many floors at triple the rent. Given the changes in building codes, materials and techniques, they are probably secretly thrilled to have a fresh start.
Trowel
@@timothystevenhoward This was an evidence tampering decision. It's pretty clear the owners of this building knew the structure was dangerous and were choosing not to spend money to fix it, evacuate the people they were endangering, or take any actions to uphold their responsibilities as landowners. They are criminals, and should be in prison or hanging from lamp posts. Demolishing instantly prevents any further evidence of their malfeasance from being uncovered.
It's a miracle the thing didn't collapse sooner given all the structural brick that had already failed (crumbling, pulverizing, falling, etc) and was no longer bearing loads above, forcing adjacent areas (which may not be in much better condition) to carry both loads, thus contributing to their failure, and repeat. There's only so much support that you can remove over time before gravity does its thing on everything above.
A toast to pessimistic engineers and their safety factors.
We can criticize the way the building was originally constructed back in the 1900's, without steel columns...but it is impressive that the building actually did give PLENTY of warning before it collapsed. I can't believe it wasn't evacuated.
Six lawsuits and counting...
Ditto on everybody's "don't apologize for the long video", comments. I don't know of any other engineering channel able to keep me glued to the video screen until the end like this one does. Very educational. You make things make sense! Thanks!
Missing your contributions to this TH-cam channel. Hope everything is going well for you.
Discovered your channel after Surfside. Your videos are amazing. Detailed and scientific, but explained well enough for anyone to understand. Thank you!
This. Impressed by that series of videos. Also impressed the quality is always top notch.
This!!! All hail Mr. Josh
Classic case of seeing what one wants to see, while overlooking things that should be obvious. Reminds me of years ago when I was presented a problem at my place of employment. There was a tool that, on occasion, when being dismantled, would break. This was costly, like about $10,000/time. All the people who had dealt with this for years attributed it to carelessness on behalf of those taking the tool apart. I investigated. The design engineer had made it virtually impossible to put ANY bending moment on the part being removed. That is what it would have taken, IF it was carelessness, as they thought. I could see that something else was in play. I looked at records of when the tool had been run. There were two conditions that both had to be met, before the tool was broken upon disassembly. High heat, and high pressure. One without the other was not sufficient. Clearly there was something else going on. Turns out an insulator material was not up to the task. It would deform when both high heat and pressure were there, but was strong enough when one or the other was not present. The deformation made it impossible to remove the tool without breakage.
As a structural engineer I really love the longer format, detailed videos you produce. This was fascinating, I've heard about multiple-wythe brick construction but I've never dealt with it firsthand. Hopefully other engineers/contractors can watch part 1 & 2 to educate themselves about this method of construction and the dangers of modifying it, hopefully avoiding another similar unnecessary disaster.
I as an EE appreciate the 'deep dive' taken in the science of brick and steel beam building analysis and repair ... as mentioned above, I will never look at a brick structure the same again.
yes, I recall the instructor in my structures class talking about it. There was some ancient reference about how thick to make a supporting wall. I never knew anyone who could do it.. I'm pretty sure that modern structures programs don't have this, do they?
@@Lanedl1 -- In my 46 year career, I've seen quite a few of these structural brick walls. Most are keyed together to stay solid and back up to the facade, but I have also seen a few where the inside was basically a dumpster full of brick and mortar chunks with no rhyme or reason. A lot of sketchy stuff went on back in the day, and of course when they were new they didn't give up their secrets. After seeing everything I've seen over the years, I wouldn't take one of these old brick money pits if I could have it for free. There is a reason I say "they don't build them like they used to" but it doesn't mean what most people would think it means. The same applies to old farm houses, and just about everything else. Until modern dimensional lumber came on the scene with span and load ratings, it was like the wild west out there.
@@smartysmarty1714 My grandfather, who was a master carpenter, used to laugh about "they don't build 'em as well as they used to". He said only the well built ones were still standing, the bad ones had fallen and we just don't see them.
@@veramae4098 The technical term is "Survivorship bias". Same reason why the "Roman Concrete is amazing" myth is annoying.
Whether or not a steel column is in the wall seems like a pretty important detail that the engineer should have been able to determine.
Kudos to the contractor who refused to do just a "face" repair. When the owner refused his bid to do it right, he refused the job.
I'll bet he's SOOOOOO glad he did!
@@veramae4098 Yeah I bet he's glad the owner refused his bid. That building was a can of worms that somebody already screwed up
@@veramae4098He's also the one who documented everything and warned everyone. My feeling is the building inspector was leaned on by the mayor.
i'm not even an engineering but it would have taken a few mins to figure that out with a portable x ray machine or more specifically a "through contact wall radar survey device" you see building contractors use to assess stress cracks in concrete , find conduits etc etc and stuff would have given you the answer. or heck probably even a stud finder/metal detector could do it if it was strong enough to get through the brick.
Don't apologize for long videos. I didn't even realize it was 50 minutes because I was so engaged in what you were explaining. Thank you!
I appreciate that!
There's a video from two months before this collapse of a facade coming away from the wall of an apartment building in New York. The building was immediately evacuated. I don't understand why this one wasn't also. The negligence from all parties is astounding.
There was an evacuation order, but some people refused. It's hard to be poor.
No wonder the mayor wanted his buddy's apartment demolished right away. The investigation has clearly turned it from negligence to gross negligence, incompetence, and reckless disregard for human life, causing injury, death, and loss of home/possessions.
I live in Davenport. We've been calling all of this out since it happened. Had we not shown up to protest in front of City Hall (across from the collapsed building, ironically) they would have moved ahead with the demolition before the bodies were even recovered. (Mind you, the stuff really hit the fan when it was discovered, to our horror, that there was still a person inside that building, along with numerous pets - which were, finally, rescued.) The bodies remained underneath the rubble for days.
@@jeannet.9125 Agreed. Don't reelect any of these people!
And tax payers are footing the bill for the expedited cover up opps I mean total legit demolition
In short, due to a lack of proper shoring while doing the repair work. They took a structure that was designed to handle vertical loads. And made it take diagonal ones. Shearing the structural brick and causing to crumble
I'm just an old woman with zero training. But as I watched your explanation I understood because you were special plain language and show what was happening. As I watched I began feeling physically ill because people were allowed to continue living there. By the end I was having to fight off going into hysteria over the lives lost. From the news at the time this was happening I remember a statement that this was low income housing and some homeless were given shelter to live there. Part of me now wonders if the people were allowed to continue living there because "they are poor ". It is clear that our society doesn't think the poor matter. I am old and sick but I'm trying to figure out out how to determine if the same sorts of situations could be developing in my own area. And also where to inquire about these things in my small town. I thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I could be way off base here, but I think people were allowed to continue to live in the building, not (directly) because they were poor, but because the building owner(s) was a money grubbing slumlord. It costs big money to make these repairs... It also brings big attention when you evac a building (think state/city inspectors) and your building, the thing you own/possibly owe money on could be forcibly condemned and your income/equity is gone and we all know that is far more important than human life /sarcasm.... The problem with most situations starts from the top - management or leadership in the workforce/military and so on. Here it was ownership. It probably started when they bought the lame duck building without doing due diligence on the condition of the building. Would you buy a house without a thorough inspection by a competent party? Their lack of concern and understanding is further shown by firing the first contractor who raised concern/alarm and said that it would cost even more and followed through until the end when after the work was completed and the facade was sloughing off. Any prudent person/group would have the building or at a minimum, the units in that area evac'ed. But no, money/income is more important. I hope that the owner(s) and engineer are made to see consequences for their inaction and/or bad judgement calls.
@@Ridinfixinman [gloomy] I doubt any consequences. And no doubt the owner uses the building collapse / demolition as a big tax deduction.
"l am an old woman named after my mother
My old man is another child that's grown old
lf dreams were lightning, and thunder were desire
This old house would have [fallen] down a long time ago"
With apologies to John Prine
Damn, has it really been 10 months since the last BI video? Hope you guys are doing well looking forward to more insights when you return.
This was amazing especially about the load shifting and I'll tell you why. I lived in an older building with a partially exposed underground parking structure held up by steel ibeams connected to brick walls. We got a blizzard that dumped 2' of snow. The garage roof had roughly 50' of it down the length covered in 8' of snow (drifts..etc), plus all the snow on the roof. During that storm three of the support steel pylons fell OFF their support due to the weight of the snow and the rust that had eaten them. The entire corner of the 2 story building fell about 4" when the supports fell. The apartment management company (truly shady operation) called out a structural engineer, I was there and heard him say: this needs to be addressed immediately. Was it? No. I left as soon as I could. Found out later the management company collected the insurance money and their fix was to put up 2 floor jacks. Nothing was said to the residents ever. Despite the concrete falling off the walls of the stairway that led to the underground parking garage.
I've been a carpenter contractor for 46 years, and have worked on many of these old brick buildings, so maybe I have a bit of an advantage when I say definitively that the engineer in charge of this project was a complete and total SCREAMING IDIOT. And his contractor wasn't far behind. I've had to challenge many, many drawings and "game plans" for similar reasons because sometimes what they draw will never work. This catastrophe could have been avoided through simple common sense. They didn't even have to be all that experienced....just smarter than your average bucket of bricks. It's an actual miracle that this thing didn't cave in on the contractors while they were working on it. I'd be willing to bet it was making strange popping sounds all day long...
I fear that like is common in the USA, the individual will be blamed. Everything will be put on the engineer and the contractor.
But the real problem is that these people were allowed to do their work with apparently insufficient training, awareness or regulation.
The USA is very good at blaming the individual and not fixing the underlying system that put that individual in that position.
Laws and regulations should change. Not just in Iowa, but all across the country. Better trained engineers and constructors should be required to prevent this from happening again.
@@rogerwilco2 --- While I sympathize with your position and understand what you're implying, there are tens of thousands of engineers and contractors in the US that wouldn't have made these mistakes. In essence, two stupid ones were chosen here, and I can't see how you could have a system in place that teaches away stupidity (and greed). Moreover, an engineer who is confused KNOWS he's confused and should be smart enough to ask for senior advice or walk away from the project, thus making him responsible for his own actions. Blaming "the system" never works. Individuals need to take responsibility for their mistakes.
@@smartysmarty1714 the “bucket of bricks” was literally smart that the two boxes of rocks.
Lived in an apt building in this same town, 40 yrs ago. We'd had a massive snowstorm, ceiling kept making weird agony sounds. (Top floor). We called manager with worry that it should be inspected. "It'll be fine" she said.
Three days later a wooden beam came thru the dining room ceiling!
Since my roomie and I had complained first (it was a big complex and others had called about agony sounds after storm) we were moved into model apartment. Everybody else had to move to cheap apartments or cheap hotel rooms. Apt company did pay rent.
'Cause it turned out instead of solid beams the contractor had somehow connected shorter ones. (Don't remember exactly.) ALL the buildings had to have their roofs rebuilt, about 12 big buildings.
We talked to a city inspector who was working, and in a very round about way he gave us reason to think he thought the original inspector was an incompetent SOB.
@@smartysmarty1714 An idiot was chosen... By who, friend? By what method (or indeed system) was the idiot chosen over the competent worker? I've worked for a company before. I can guess. Idiots are cheap. Putting idiots in charge though is something the corp needs to be personally responsible for.
What you're suggesting goes against what you believe, too. If you think it's impossible to make a system that prevents greed and idiots, then you can't believe that the solution is to make sure every single person makes the smart and wholesome choice. You need to make a system which works even with idiots in it, which verifies and works beyond the individual (which is how regulation works).
Personal responsibility only works if you believe every single person is in fact responsible and trustworthy. They're not. So you need more than personal honor. If you think there are engineers who are not responsible and who are not honest, no amount of personal responsibility and honesty will work!
You need to look at your society and think hard about how to ACTUALLY do things right. And that almost always means starting with reforming the system. If you believe you can't train out dumb then you also believe in reforming the system. You've just been taught otherwise, somehow.
I miss your videos!
Breaking down a complex situation for those of us that don’t have your qualifications, into something we can fully understand, is what makes these dissections so interesting. Thank you for your time and effort. Regards from OZ 🇦🇺
I certainly miss your videos. I hope no one pressured u to stop. I also hope u can make money in this forum.
Future engineers need you as in instructor. I would take a whole semester with you just to go over engineering failures. A) how to spot the failures and B) what could have been done to prevent it. You're an amazing teacher, even if this is just what you do for work. Being smart doesn't always mean people can convey it to others. You do a phenomenal job of explaining it.
Exactly my thoughts. A gifted communicator!
Isn't that exactly what these videos are?
@@rcpmac But it's different to sit in a classroom and to be able to have conversations with the professor and fellow classmates.
I absolutely love his videos. But we need engineers that are as smart as him entering the field, and not learning from the ones that like to take short cuts that cause these catastrophes.
@@SandrA-hr5zk In my experience, it's the difference between undergrad and grad school. Undergrad is closer to high-school where the instructor knows you didn't read the text book, so has to go over what's already there. Meanwhile, in one of my grad school classes the instructor had us read 100 pages of "The Goal" before our next class so we could talk about it.
This was an excellent video. It’s like a case study happening almost in real time. And as a naval architect, it’s always interesting to learn about how structures on land work, especially because masonry structures behave so differently from steel. Thank you!
Another fantastic video, Josh. Gripping. Am always excited when I get a heads-up you’ve posted something new. Don’t apologise for the length - I love your clarity and focus and your measured delivery. Thank you.
The negligence/incompetence here is stunning
Wow you did it again! This presentation is like what you did for me with the Champlain Towers collapse. It made me see how complex and detailed analysis is needed BEFORE the building falls down in addition to after. Thanks.
I always come away from Josh's videos so much smarter. You truly one of the best teachers I have ever witnessed and you have ignited my interest in engineering and desire to forensically analyze these building failures. Thank you Josh.
I'm not an Engineer. Well I have some Firefighting Engineering Credentials. Including some classes and lots of training on inspecting a building, reading a building and knowing when to get the hell out of a building, or to not go in. I've spent some light duty time doing Code Enforcement and inspections. So by no means a Civil or Structural Engineer. But a fairly well educated layman. These pictures scare the hell out of me. And I think what scares me more is there would have been a real Engineer standing there telling me that I was worrying over nothing. One of the tricks I was always taught for fast assessment of a building when pulling up on a scene is to quickly look for the buildings lines. Find the corners, find the window frames and doors. Is everything still plum? At proper straight lines and perpendicular to each other. No Curves is a big one. Do all the windows line up as expected are door frames straight? This is just the quick 123 test you do as you are walking up to any unknown building on a fire call. And boy would this fail my quick test. Setting eyes on the interior face of the supporting walls. That's the point where you very gently get your crew to take careful babysteps to the nearest exit while you have the trucks start blowing the evacuate alarm. That stuff going on at 34:10 I would have spotted that, in the dark. And I'm a complete idiot with structures.
Well, what to say here. This looks like Amateur Night for Engineers. This is what happens when jobs are carried out to save cost.
I`ve done many such refurbs in my time and I wouldn`t go near this without a custom made steel support structure to take all the floor loads away from the brickwork. Doesn`t need to cover the whole facade, it can be carried out in sections. Trying to do this with strongbacks and props tied together is possible if you know what you are doing and have a capable engineer on board. I`ve dropped the spine wall on a ten storey building but I relied on more than good will to hold it up till the new structure was in place. The photo with those lightweight props under the window heads tells me all I need to know.
Thanks again for a very interesting two parter!
Man it's been 11 months. Hopefully everything is going okay.
No apologies. The video was as long as it needed to be. No unnecessary filler.
Absolutely clear analysis.
I hope the city officials, engineer, and owner, all of whom are responsible for this murderous idiocy, go to jail. No care for their craft, for their responsibilities, and for the human lives their decisions affect.
Thank you for making these videos, you are amazing at explaining complex topics and breaking them down into understandable chunks.
Still, no matter how good you are at explaining - it's disturbing how intuitive this structural problem here is. It should be obvious to any random person, that you cannot just assume a 100-years-old brick wall is supported by beams, and that you cannot just leave entire brick wall segments largely unsupported, and that the failure signs shown in the images are obvious indications of a major structural issue.
Just have to say this as basically an anonymous commenter. If you had been in the basement of that building in the last 2 to 5 years you would not question why they demolished it. There were many structural concerns raised about that building from contractors that had gone in there to do various forms of work they were all ignored and purposely not documented. That's all I can say.
You should be teaching at a top engineering school. I'm an electrical engineer with an interest in civil and structural engineering. This video was a great "lesson" on load transfers and stress flows. Well done!
Josh, if one of your clients is willing to allow you to share your process in your day to day practice, I think it would be extremely educational. How do you keep an open mind and avoid confirmation bias? What errors by other engineers do you most commonly run into?
@thatclintguy If you have an interest in civil and structural engineering and haven’t watched his videos on the Champlain Tower collapse, I highly recommend watching them. I understand Josh has his own firm that is busy due to the new rules put in place to prevent another CTS from happening, but whatever can be done for Josh to teach the most engineers is what I want for the sake of my own safety!
I didn't realize how complex this entire incident was. This was very eye opening.
As a citizen of the United States, and of Davenport, Iowa, I just want to thank you for the time and effort that you put into this excellent presentation, particularly regarding the failure of providing adequate structural supports. A sixth lawsuit has recently been filed; I suspect it will not be the last. (The warnings, and shoddy workmanship have been noted.) Parts 1 & 2 have been shared to one of our local pages dedicated to the collapse and the corruption.
Miss you my guy
Quote from the mason that warned people about the imminent collapse: ""Andrew contacted us to give them a bid on the back of the building to repair the exterior masonry that was crumbling and falling," Shaffer said. "Our bid was to support the building all the way up, replace the section of wall on the inside that was missing and then redo the façade of the brick on the outside." So it appears that the (higher bidding) trades were aware they needed to properly shore the whole load, it's bizarre to me that an engineer wouldn't understand or recognize that. Actually, I think if you took a random person off the street and explained that you wanted to cut away an entire section of a large building wall at the base, their first question would be "how do you support it so it doesn't fall down?"
I'm not an engineer or anything of the sort, but I find all this fascinating. Thanks for explaining it so an average person can understand.
Really sad we will be seeing less of you in the next few months, but I'm super thankful for all the time you spent to put these together. Really makes a huge difference even as just a homeowner, I'm now constantly aware of structures I'm in and paying close attention to how my own house moves or shifts.
I missed that Josh will be taking a break? Hope it's for something good.
Any more info on this?
It's a testament to the buildings original design that it held out for as long as it did despite the beating it went through.
BUILDING INTEGRITY !
This is the kind of thing the internet should be doing ... sharing REAL information and cogent analysis of what went wrong so that WE THE PEOPLE can LEARN from mistakes and IMPROVE going forward. Sadly too much of the internet is cluttered with false and misleading babble.
Thank you so much for this video and all of your hard work producing the content on your channel. My construction is basically limited to decks and small projects. I’ve always tried to do the best job and give my clients a quality project. Your analysis of building failure is really helpful as you point out many factors that a lot of contractors might not see.
Because I tend to slightly overbuild, I’ve never had any issues with anything I’ve built. Hopefully everyone in the construction trades can learn from these very educational videos.
I’m looking forward to the next episode.
Creators have proven long form works if and only if they are good at being a great teacher or provide something interesting and worth listening to or learning about.
You are an example of that. Take as long as you need.
I m construction worker from Finland , and your channel have been a reason why I ve taken interest in building engineering.
I am an engineer and I love this channel. Brilliant, clear, and honest explanations of physical facts. What happened to the engineer that designed the repair that apparently lead to the subsequent colapse?
My guess is that he will not be an engineer for much longer. I'm betting that he will have his license pulled in every state that he has a license.
If you show a single one of these images to a German building inspector the inhabitants would be notified of his decision by the arrival of the Feuerwehr 10 minutes later and evacuated within 30 minutes...
Dude, I *love* your long explanations. I know nothing about structural engineering, but as a mathy person who's fascinated by how things fail (and thus secondarily how they work at all in the first place), this, like all your videos, was awesome.
The engineer's failure to acknowledge what was happening is infuriating & incredible. How did he not understand the building at all?
Excellent as usual Josh. I have followed your TH-cam presentations for some time now, starting with the Surf side collapse. What I'm also looking forward to is any follow-up on the Milleniuim Tower in San Fransisco. As a retired consulting electrical and mechanical engineer I worked with several different structural engineers in the design and construction of commercial buildings.
I remember during my early years I worked with a structural engineer in North Dakota. As a young inexperienced engineer I asked him if his design would "work". His answer was " I hope not".
He patiently explained to me that work was force through distance, and he " didn't want anything to move". Keep up the good work.
Hi Josh, Hope all is well. Just wanted to drop a note to let you know how much I've appreciated this channel over the past few years. I was looking to see if you had a reaction to the NIST information dump about Surfside. Mostly it seems to completely validate what you hypothesized.
Interesting that you and I reached the same conclusions. Having worked for a company that did sheeting, suring, pile driving and underpinning, I got to see the correct ways to consolidate loads without losing the structure or damaging it. As I see it the only way to accomplish the necessary work was to vacate all the apartements in the affected area so as to allow for installation of temporary support from the ground all the way up, then to replace existing support. In my mind there was a reluctance by the owner to do this correctly as it would have caused a loss of cash flow from those apartments where work was required. I don't see any other way to correct the decay without this procedure. And it might have entailed doing this along the entire perimeter of the building wherever support columns existed. Essentially, rebuilding the structure with new support, throughout. And at that point you have to ask yourself, as the owner, is it worth saving the building at all. But to allow occupancy until the demise occurred is criminal, in my mind. Don't know who paid the engineer who made recommendations but there seems a bias in his opinion or even worse, perhaps a lack of knowledge.
I run a small business in underpinning, mini piling(restricted access), foundation repair, structural steel and concrete work and i have seen some bad situations but seeing the picture of the windowframe bulging inwards would put me in "shit is hitting the fan, big time" mode and steel props and shoring would be going in the same day. And all the plasterboad and everything infront of the structural brickwork would go out to see whats happening
Thank you so much for these videos! My background is in engineering (BEng in IT & MSc in EE; structural and mechanical only by practice), however, I've spent most of my professional career so far in administrative and financial roles. Nothing wrong in them, I don't mean that, but this drive you show, the need to understand how things work, and how we may or may not make them work, really makes me to want to get back into my roots.
This video is giving me Hyatt Regency walkway vibes. Great work and a great explanation.
Hopefully the consequences to the engineer will be the same.
You analyses are always so thorough and excellent. While I don't hope for disasters, I look forward to your analyses when there is a collapse.
Hi Josh, we’ve not heard from you for a long time. I hope you’re well. I really enjoyed your videos and hope nothing untoward has befallen you. Take care.
We miss you Josh!! ❤
prayers to anyone who lost their life here.
relative to the construction, OMG, what crappy construction methods.
looks like the best thing to happen to that building was for it to have collapsed.
Thank you for taking the time to go through all the details. Your knowledge is fascinating.
keep up the good work.
On a much smaller scale, I called in some contractors to look at a house built around 1898 and got a quote for some work. The price wasn't too bad, but something didn't sit quite right with me. So I called out a retired contractor friend who'd done a lot of work on older houses. His estimate of repairs was triple what the original contractor's was and it wasn't because he was trying to be expensive. It's because his eyes saw things that needed fixing that the contractors who work on more modern houses didn't even notice or didn't know about.
Excellent content! I commented about your conretes worst enemy video earlier this year, and you replied. It was a pleasure to chat with you. I recommend your channel all the time, and have learned alot from you! Thank you.
Thanks!
@@BuildingIntegrityone thing that stands out is the hollow bricks (at 42' 24") used in the "structural" part of the wall. Those hollow facing bricks should never be in the structural part of any wall especially of multiple stories.. It explains why as they fracture the broken pieces no longer fill the space and collapse leaving a cavity - that was initially very puzzling, where did the space come from?. Solid bricks would have cracked/ shifted but still filled the space.
It could well be this building was catastrophically doomed from these hollow bricks failing before the repair process.
Another thing to note is the new addition of what looks like new steel studding to support drywall inside (at 40' 52"). This means drilling or more likely shooting anchors into the "structural brick" part of the wall to install it. Such drilling/shooting will severely weaken those thin walled hollow bricks over the whole wall. That would be another aspect to examine in detail.
I learn more from your videos than I do from most Professional Engineer education videos. Thanks!
Fantastic video, as always. Definitely one of my must-watch channels on TH-cam.
Have a thought for a 'Part 3' in this series: At various points during the timeline leading up to the collapse, what would your recommendation have been to repair the building correctly? And at what point do you think the building passed the proverbial "point of no return?"
And also at what point should the building have been evacuated?
The engineer who was having the Building get away from him, he needed to ask other engineer friends to take a fresh look at the Building. He needed fresh sets of eyes to look at these escalating problems.
Incredible video. Thorough, not long, extremely informative and evidence based. It’s a shame that every municipality doesn’t have a building engineer like you on staff to catch these tragic oversights.
It's exactly this sort of analysis that should have been done before starting work.
This sort of half arsed approach is far more common than people realise. People often think they know more than they do.
Great video
Excellent analysis! I am shocked at the original repair design. I am an engineer from completely different field but I can follow the logic. I am also amazed by the lack of the attention by the repair design to the loads. My neighbour has his brick wall little two storey house modified and they put more attention to transferring the loads from the wall above while modifying the window opening. And here you have the huge, complicated building and design that doesn't take the wall thickness into account.
Josh, this was very engaging, and highly detailed and entertaining, I learned so much!! Please never apologize for length. When things are important, and great info, it is limitless and fascinating. I hope you submit this to the city, over there to take a look at it, because they seem to not have the capability in their local builders, inspectors, and contractors, to know what they are doing. this is everything that happened, that they need to know, and they did not need to tear the rest of that building down, like they did. This incident is horrific, as folks have died. so terrible.
As always, a thorough and believable analysis of what went wrong in this collapsed building and in the professionals (private and city) responsible for this disaster. I just watched the short but detailed TH-cam video by Mike Bell and he was able to slow down the video of the building's final 9 minute slow-mo collapse. This showed two major things: 1) that second-by-second you could see the silly wooden "braces" were actually moving and zinging before the fall, and 2) that there were about 6 other noticeable puffs of dust indicating bricks as they turned into powder and the building load shifted to other bricks that then powdered and crushed. One news article I read on-llne indicated that the actual repair work on the building was done by a masonry company owned by the building's owner, Andrew Wold,. Wold is being sued by at least 6 parties for negligence...a real "bad actor" as you say Josh.
Makes me value my old 1903-1910 International Correspondent School books covering construction and wall design.
Another fine post Josh! Thank you so much. A few blocks away from me, the entire brick side of a masonry 2-story house peeled off last week; a similar situation where material was falling into the void between the structural block and the brick facade.
We heard a rumble one evening, thought it was a rather loud roll of isolated thunder, and a few days later I walked past the cause- the top 2/3 of the outer sandstone layer on one end of a terrace of houses had fallen off. Onto a few cars, which were rather squashed. The terrace was 2-storey and would probably be about 100-120 years old. It took some time to rebuild it, one hopes they put some hefty stainless steel ties in it to tie it to the existing wall...... The inner wall, mostly brick, with chimney masonry that was rather interesting, looked in excellent condition, didn't look to have moved at all.
31:20 I'm not an engineer, but a designer, this is something new I learnt today, caught me by surprise of how these brick building works, it isn't like regular steel structure or re-enforced concrete structure, the loads aren't transferred point to point, but more of flowing around.
Josh, never apologize for going long on your videos, us less than knowledgeable folks love your in-depth explanations. This forensic investigation is some of your finest yet, Thank you.
Brilliant analysis and investigation sleuth. I'm in construction and this an amazing lesson from you. I learned a lot. If I ever see a droopy window I will run ada fast as I can. 👏👏👏👏
been waiting for this! can confirm it was worth it as well, detail is what makes this channel special :)
Oh, those were STRUCTURAL bricks? (Sorry, I could not resist. Thanks for the wonderful video!)
This rapid acceleration of collapse had to have made scary noises people in the building heard.
This was absolutely fascinating…and chilling. Engineers and contractors have lives in their hands. If they are careless or incompetent, those lives could be lost.
It sounds like the primary fault is the bad engineering design of the “repairs,” which destabilized the whole side of the building; disregarding of obvious warning signs (which were actually photographed!); and failure to alert tenants and workers to the danger. The engineering plans plainly showed both total lack of understanding of the building’s weight-bearing structure and a fatal lack of basic engineering competence in shoring the wall. I’m not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like at least part of the blame must fall on the engineering company because their modifications not only failed to repair the building, they actively triggered the collapse. It would probably have happened eventually without their intervention because the structural brick was crumbling, but they made it happen very quickly and did not give warnings.
A sad irony that the “repairs,” complete with a spiffy new cosmetic façade and paint job, were so incompetently done that they were the final straw that brought down that wall. And that so many obvious red flags warning of imminent collapse, and also insistent verbal warnings by a credible witness with masonry experience, were all ignored.
This is like the Miami building. They first wanted to make it LOOK nice and let the rest take care of it's self.
The lack of awareness of the engineer of building techniques in the early 20th century seems bizarre to me - I am neither an engineer, nor in the construction business, but even I am aware that 100-120 years ago, it was common for buildings up to 10 storeys to be built with a load-bearing perimeter wall. I don't even know _how_ I know, but I had assumed it was common knowledge that that was how buildings were built back then.
This wall modification was done and NO ONE noticed that the two 12'x6' window openings that had the brick façade over them had NO structural brick in them? WTH?
The psychological/political issues deserve some attention. An engineer is paid (sometimes) to write a report that suits the client. The paragraph the began "The main takeaway..." is a screaming code word for what the unsophisticated client demanded to hear.
Integrity is corrupted by magical and complacent thinking. Paraphrasing: A man will believe anything if his paycheck depends on it.
Geez. I guess it's a testament to how well the building was built that this collapse didn't drag down the rest of it. What little I know of structural engineering comes from your channel, Josh, but I have a feeling that a more modern building would still be standing after this. (Maybe CTS illustrated this?)
Fascinating!!! Never would I have imagined the problems with the single vs multi story shoring, it's excellent to be able to learn from an expert in the field. Thank you :)
Thank you for taking time to share the analysis. It is too bad the contractor was not in a position to have more input into the design of the remodeling. I’ll bet the laborers on the job could easily look up and intuitively understand that several stories of unsupported layers of brick between the new CMU wall sections wasn’t going to stay floating there for long. This disaster shows that bilateral communication channels need to be built into projects like this so that oversights don’t become disasters.
Where did you go???
Thanks for making this video. I am always a fan of your videos. I learned many new things as a structural engineer. Just a quick opinion. From 31:15, what I understood was that replacing the old structural brick part with post shoring affects the loading path of the above floor. However, if we solely consider this loading path change, and set aside all other aspects of this building, if the post shorings on the first floor are sufficient to replace the demolished structural brick, the loading path above shouldn't change significantly. If you want to modify a corner column on the first floor of the 10-story building, you don't need to post shore all the way up the 10 stories, but rather provide enough shoring to the adjacent area of the column on the first floor during construction. I am happy to hear different opinions.
After viewing the first part of the investigation, I questioned why the original structural engineer didn't use a full steel frame as opposed to relying on a thick brick wall for load bearing. Then realizing the build lasted 106 years and didn't fall down until an improper repair was made makes the case for the brick load bearing wall. Perhaps this design was standard practice at the time it was built.
Incredible analysis. This kind of rigor and detail is what separates good content from "most everything else". I usually relax through 45+ minute videos, but this one had me on the edge of my seat, the *whole time*. Terrific video, thanks for doing this hard work.
Have you looked more deeply into the early history of the building? Because I suspect those bricked in windows on the west face were originally loading bay doors. The tall thin profile fits the shape of a turn of the last century horse-drawn cargo lorry. The location in the building, at the rear and immediately below the less desirable service quarters also fits. Then, as now, a loading dock area would have been noisy and smelly and not something you would have wanted around the guests. It would also explain why they, and none of the windows around them, were bricked in when the area went out of use.
If this is the case, there could have been very old cumulative damage in the area from decades of minor collisions, and cargo and trash being hauled in and out.
That is a great observation. I love that kind of analysis!
There was recently a partial building collapse in a neighboring county, and the building is constructed similar to this one, with the beams (wood, in this instance,) bearing directly on the brick wall, which collapsed. This is a fantastic video series about this incident in Iowa, and you've absolutely earned yourself another subscriber!
Yourself and Jeff Ostroff are both brilliant in your analysis. Keep are the great work and im looking forward until your next video
Your content shows the dire need of competent structural engineers, as they save lives!! It is sad with news of buildings falling over, that all of that could have been prevented. Very sad.