A brief History of: The Teton Disaster (Documentary)

[@PlainlyDifficult]

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[@grmpEqweer]

Boise is "Boy-zee" 😋 You're cute. 😁. Also, the Teton mountains (Iirc) were named "Teton" by one h0rny french explorer, who thought they looked like t1t$.

[@6yjjk]

Mate, take it easy with that flicker (11:05). You're gonna give someone an epileptic fit.

[@cobeer1768]

Tee-taan.

[@Adderkleet]

11:08 - you've got to start using a less aggressive flicker effect. It's an extremely uncomfortable strobe you got going there.

[@carolinacoreas7716]

Hello! At around like the first 23/24 second mark, the word "financial" switches to "finanical" and I thought it was a funny quirk. It for sure changes back to the correct spelling, I just didn't think I'd catch the spelling error.

[@cattibingo]

Might want to listen to the _actual geologists_ when they say an area is _geologically_ unstable

[@jaymata1218]

here in the States, we only listen to the ones that tell us what we wanna hear

[@AndrooUK]

Haha. Yes, like we listen to actual climatologists and virologists when it comes to anthropogenic climate change that is causing no problems (and keeps changing every decade or two) and the super deadly yet surprisingly asymptomatic coronavirus? Politics comes before actual science and data. Scientists these days are only there to support the political agenda, they have nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge and reality.

[@PercivalBlakeney]

@Jay Mata It has been commented upon. 😉

[@cheremichael367]

Spot on 👍👍

[@justarandomname420]

But, what if they're wrong? Best to build a dam just to make sure! That's hiw science is done. Test all theories.

[@cody4783]

"Two bulldozers were sent down to (try and) fill the leak" Logical, as you'd want to do when things start to go awry at a dam. Filling the hole with materia--- "...at around 11am one of the bulldozers started sliding into the opening" Well I'm no expert, but filling a leak with an entire bulldozer definitely falls into what I'd consider "unconventional" means.

[@grahamfisher5436]

exactly. everyone knows you use Duck tape.

[@NotMykl]

@@grahamfisher5436 DUCT tape not duck.

[@grahamfisher5436]

@@NotMykl I'm from Nottingham. everything is DUCK me duck

[@tuxitalk4-tuxipolitixpage772]

@@grahamfisher5436 😂😂🤣❤️ There is a company that makes duct tape called Duck. The inside of a roll says 'Duck tape' on it. They also make sealing tape and bubble wrap.

[@grahamfisher5436]

@@tuxitalk4-tuxipolitixpage772 hi, there is indeed. me duck. so called.. because like Duck's 🦆 there Hardy and waterproof 🤩🤩👍💪🌊🦆🥰

[@tncorgi92]

When you're finding caves in the area you're digging for a foundation, it's time to re-evaluate your plans.

[@KestrelOwens]

Especially bad when you don't fill all of them because they are 'outside the area of the cut off wall, therefor, don't affect it'

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

never build a dam on a gate for the damned...

[@samwise1790]

@@KestrelOwens they actually did try to fill them via grout pumping. The problem was the rock NEVER stopped accepting more grout, which means the porosity was way higher and more interconnected than they thought. They pumped grout far exceeding their estimates but eventually just gave up and went ahead with construction. You can still see the grout pumping channels in the north side abutment to this day. I climbed down to drill rock samples and saw them up close.

[@abrahamlincoln9758]

That sounds like a big dam problem.

[@Mehrunes86]

@@abrahamlincoln9758 You're dam right😂

[@RoshDroz]

I just learned a new term, "completion bias". I'm a dentist and find myself doing this quite often when doing a root canal and discovering a crack or perforated canal near the end of a 1.5-2hr appt. I do my best to catch myself and be honest about it but it's hard telling the patient the tooth is a goner after they just endured a very uncomfortable root canal.

[@MongooseTacticool]

"Get-there-itis" I've heard it called in Aviation. Paul Bartorelli said it on the AvWeb channel.

[@adamfox1669]

This is why people dont like expensive dentists

[@Liv-si6qu]

@@adamfox1669 it's not like he's purposely waiting til the end to find the crack

[@ZGryphon]

@@MongooseTacticool And its astronautical brother, "go fever."

[@YohanathanD]

@Liv no but he's implying he's went on ahead with the procedure after finding such

[@TenShine1productions]

The fact someone was able to photograph the different stages of the collapse is amazing and really puts more depth to the story

[@mfaizsyahmi]

when you're fucking up so bad geologists are already placing down cameras to record your fuck-up in real time.

[@TenShine1productions]

@@mfaizsyahmi It's as if they knew 🤣

[@b.w.5828]

If I remember right, there's even a video out there of the exact moment the bulldozer they had been using to try to stop the first leak fell in.

[@dillonrinehart8319]

The disaster took 2 days to completely unfold. They spend part of the previous day, and the entirety of the night trying to stop the crack from growing any bigger on the face. By the time it broke there were multiple local news agencies on scene

[@jackmehoffe9662]

There's a whole video moron

[@playgroundchooser]

In the aviation industry it's called "Get-There-Itis.". It's killed many pilots and passengers.

[@nenmaster5218]

I have the hobby to recommend science-channel to those in c-sections under science-channels... i mean... its kinda self-explanatory, really... Anyway, want some?

[@ronaldshank7589]

Agreed! Any time you're told to "Rush things", it almost never ends up good!

[@adamgarber9063]

We suffer from the same thing in the trucking industry. Many of us are paid per mile, meaning the faster the better, and we're all guilty of it. Safety is often second if thought of at all when our livelyhood relies on keeping a truck going.

[@chicagonorthcoast]

The guiding philosophy of the Bureau of Reclamation was to keep on building dams no matter how little needed or justified, no matter how unsuitable the site, and no matter how many warnings there were that the course of action was ill-advised. By 1970, all the good dam sites were already taken and those left were as flawed as the Teton site.

[@colinstewart1432]

Yep. Target Fixation.

[@Chainsaw-ASMR]

Blaming "geologic factors" for their failure to choose a suitable site...WOW! If the geology is bad, then choose another site...you can't blame the planet. That's like building a highway up to a cliff-edge, then blaming the surface for dropping too fast.

[@LynxSnowCat]

It's almost bewildering to look at the dam site (on Google maps) now and see the scale at which the rock splintered. www.google.com/maps/@43.9093416,-111.5380633,238a,35y,301.2h,50.3t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en I remember being led to the base of an overgrown spillway (w/ no dam or other body of water to drain) in the Great Lakes region as a child, and not understanding _how_ there was a series of bus-sized stone --boulders-- crude-blocks in the river leading up to it. (and why there was a spillway with no body of water connected to it) That a dam blew apart and carried pieces of its a stone wall is one of the many possible explanations our guide was unwilling to give us.

[@Tindometari]

It's kind of like those guys in the Mississippi oilfield who decided to test for a flammable atmosphere in a tank *by inserting a lit torch into the tank*. BOOOOOOM! "Yep, we got a flammable atmosphere. Hey, wait a minute ... that's funny, do you smell all that sulfur too? And where does this road lead?"

[@ryrin6091]

But they didn't "blame the planet". The geological factors was mentioned by the independent investigation who also mentioned in the same paragraph the human error. Taken together their statement is essentially "Due to the human error that took place, these geological factors is why the dam collapsed".

[@scout360pyroz]

@@LynxSnowCat depending on how old they are it could be from natural ice dams from the ice ages. Washington has potholes the size of large houses and wave patterns carved into the land on an unbelievable scale from biblical level floods at unbelievable velocities from just that.

[@QueenSunstar]

@@scout360pyroz The Missoula Lake floods to be precise.

[@sapphiregamgee4773]

The dam pretty much collapsed as it was being finished. My dad was one of the first to know it was happening because he worked at Radio Shack at the time, and he and some other employees liked to listen in on police radios during their breaks. Because of this, he got a real-time, blow-by-blow account of the collapse before the local news, or nearly anyone else. He called my grandpa, who didn't believe it at first, until the later radio and TV broadcast. Luckily, Idahoans are swift to organize in an emergency. The towns further down the Teton River had time to evacuate, while volunteers sandbagged and cut bridges to let the flood through. Both my parents lived with their families in Idaho Falls (40+ miles downstream), and these measures largely worked. They also helped with cleanup after the fact.

[@sarjim4381]

I was involved in dam safety work for almost 20 years. Completion bias is probably the biggest enemy of good engineering that exists, but this is especially true for dams. There aren't many locations that meet the geologic, geographic, and financial conditions needed to construct a dam, so once a location is chosen and work started, it's nearly impossible to stop it. The concept of "sunk funds", the amount already expended before a problem is found, just drives a project forward so the whole thing doesn't turn into a complete waste. Even more unfortunate is the ones who know the true dangers of a dam are project engineers who have the least amount of input into the safety and suitability of a project. Trust me, there are more disasters out there ready to happen when all the right conditions are met.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

The problem is that "sunk funds" are not just a concept but an actual thing (at least, whenever those who are doing the construction do not able to print money, in the latter case it's more complicated) the only way around sunk funds is to make sure all problems are found BEFORE any significant money is spent... under an economy, no one is going to stop doing something already paid for on a (even significant) chance something might happen, that is, unless there is a 100% compensation/insurance (with no effect on premiums).... otherwise, we just have to accept such mishaps as the cost of business.

[@StoneInMySandal]

@@jensnobel5843Are you seriously advocating against earthen dams?

[@TheAbyssalStorm]

@@jensnobel5843We all know that they aren’t going to stop making earthen dams. If a large company sees an opportunity to make a quick profit, they will usually grab it with both hands, with little regard for safety. Though the root of a lot of their problems when it comes to a lack of safety in a lot of these construction project that lead to disaster is the shortsightedness of the companies, who can’t see past the immediate profit that they can get (at least that’s what I can infer from all of these industrial disasters).

[@thatlittlevoice6354]

When "all the right conditions are met", anything can turn into a disaster.

[@wiseauserious8750]

Good assertation. We humans do love our fallacies

[@aidanfarnan4683]

Completion Bias: When the Sunk Cost Fallacy becomes a Sunk Town Fallacy.

[@seand.g423]

Which inevitably becomes a lovely little game of "blame the victims/refugees"...

[@christibritton1436]

reminds me of story about a fellow who lost a quarter down an outhouse hole. He kept throwing $5 & $10 bills in until it became worth jumpin' in after the money.

[@TheMouseAvenger]

Gotta admit, I would fall for the Completion Bias often. Because I believe in completing a goal or project or whatever, no matter what! ^_^

[@KenFullman]

Completion Bias: Sometimes it's just so hard to pull out.

[@airplanemaniacgaming7877]

@@KenFullman AKA: "whoops, looks like you're pregnant!" syndrome

[@KyIieMinogue]

I’m obsessed with this dam failure series.

[@baseballlava]

Same.

[@nopenope8418]

Since i live in Quebec Canada and nearly all our electricity comes from hydro power, i must just watch these, so interesting!

[@stankythecat6735]

Me to … is it weird ?

[@grmpEqweer]

Oh dam.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

Dam failures are a great example of the dangers of not being safety focused

[@b.w.5828]

Thank you for covering this! I'm always surprised by how little-known this disaster seems to be outside of Idaho itself. I grew up in the area that was flooded in this disaster and have been down to see the remnants of the dam. My mom was a young teen when it happened. She was out with her mother when they heard the news. They had to call her brother who was stuck at home and tell him to get everything important off the ground and find somewhere high up to wait. Luckily a hill diverted water from their home, otherwise it would have been flooded. I don't think most people understood how deep the water would get in some areas. Between my parents, we had a photo album of images post-flood, including some aerial shots taken from a helicopter. Some of the most notable ones are a round silo sitting in the middle of the road, houses moved, almost intact, completely off their foundation, and dead cattle hanging off power lines. Roads that just vanish, insane amounts of mud and gunk. Some of the buildings shown on main street in Rexburg are still standing today.

[@ruthmeow4262]

Exactly. I was just a little scrub in Idaho Falls when this happened. I remember my parents packing up me and the siblings and heading to a cousins house on a hill. Downtown was flooded. Just glad it wasn't the Palisades Dam.

[@deplorableneanderthal1265]

I was in my early 20's when this happened. No one can realize how devastating it was to the area unless you were there. Everything from massive top soil loss on the local farms to roads, buildings, railroads, livestock, loss of homes and valuables, and of course, lives. I lost my car and I considered myself extremely lucky compared to my neighbors.

[@vomeronasal]

But, but...where does it rate on The Plainly Difficult Patented Disaster Scale?!

[@lucidityZ]

And where is that on a map?

[@WeldinMike27]

His cat battered it under the fridge.

[@cattibingo]

@@lucidityZ "around here" *shows map of entire United States

[@RicardoCristofRemmertFontes]

Damn! Yes, this is painfully missing!

[@skachor]

This video now ranks at 10

[@darvinclement3250]

I remember someone telling me some of the dead being some fishermen on a boat downstream. Imagine seeing that wall of water coming at you. That's the stuff nightmares are made of.

[@ruthmeow4262]

Yes, and fishermen along the bank, one was a friend of one of my high school teachers. They found him in a tree. No way to warn any of them.

[@stevie-ray2020]

"SURF'S UP!!!"

[@maddi66515]

This just happened to the husband of my moms friend. He and his son were fishing on the edge of the capilano river, usually there is a warning before they open the dam, this time there wasn’t. He died, and they still haven’t found his son. That poor family. I can’t imagine their last moments.

[@trevormillar1576]

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh SHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTT!!!!!!"

[@lowkeysoundsystem6174]

What did the fish say when it hit the wall? Dam!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

😂😂

[@SK22000]

LOL!!!

[@TheJoeSwanon]

I am seriously going to use this Dad joke 😂

[@lowkeysoundsystem6174]

@@TheJoeSwanon Don't let me stop you.

[@lowkeysoundsystem6174]

Sometimes I like to tell dad jokes. Sometimes he laughs.

[@tihspidtherekciltilc5469]

If this channel was on TV twenty years ago my TV wouldn't have rapidly disassembled itself while overdosing on lead. Top notch work.

[@steve0592]

I worked with someone who'd worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board He told that, if you wanted to build a dam to the same safety standards as a nuclear power station, you'd need at least 10 dams further downstream I'm case the ones upstream failed,

[@advena996]

That's an interesting point! I'm from northern CA and it was crazy when the (lack of) safety of the Oroville dam became apparent. (There are like 200k people living below the very large Oroville dam, so it was a big deal when heavy rains and poorly maintained spillways lead to major problems as I recall) Thankfully it didn't fail, but it was crazy to see how mismanaged they can be, and we don't really realize how lethal dam failures have the potential to be.

[@pseudotasuki]

@@advena996 If the rain hadn't slowed it would've failed. The only output channel that wasn't eroding up towards the dam face was the power plant, and its output was blocked by rocks and soil eroded off the hillside.

[@Memphian1000]

At least 3

[@TotallyNotRedneckYall]

To be fair, a dam failure won't render an area uninhabitable for fifty-thousand years.

[@pseudotasuki]

@@TotallyNotRedneckYall Nuclear reactor accidents don't do that, either.

[@vaszgul736]

Just another case of "you were so busy trying to see if you could, you didn't stop to think if you should"

[@YeahNo]

It’s the American waaaaayyy.

[@1cont]

Jurassic Park all over again

[@seand.g423]

@@YeahNo yeah, well, that's what happens when all you got is Right and Center-Right-called-Left...

[@OneSon744]

ya like the A.I.

[@deltab9768]

I've actually visited Newdale. There are some buildings that didn't have to be torn down, and you can see marks on them where the water level stained the brickwork. It was definitely 10 or 15 feet high. Scary stuff.

[@LevenLappi]

I'm worried about how many people have died that time, cause yikes..

[@deltab9768]

@@LevenLappi as they said in the video, 11 people drowned. Many more would have except the dam showed signs of failing long before it actually broke so they were able to evacuate.

[@tuxitalk4-tuxipolitixpage772]

@@deltab9768 Thank goodness! That saved many lives.

[@sswander]

Newdale did not see any flood water that day. Wilford,sugar city and rexburg all got hit though. I lived through this flood.

[@Hezkezl]

@@sswander My dad's childhood home was in Wilford, and it was completely wiped off the face of the planet :( They were really damn lucky to make it out of the area in time.

[@AsmodeusMictian]

It's the random comments on the illustrations that get me literally every time. Thanks for another great vid, sir!

[@kingfisher9553]

I lived three miles downstream from this dam when it failed. We fled (high speed driving toward Idaho Falls) but turned out the water jumped the channel before it got to our town of Newdale and missed the town. Took out farmland all around, stripped it down to moonrock, took out homes of many of our friends in Sugar City and Rexburg, and one friend committed suicide after he had been forced to relocate when he realized his home in Rexburg could not be restored. He just never came back from that loss.

[@n.l.vannstallings4664]

This is very sad. The whole thing just absolutely breaks my heart

[@andybaldman]

Suicide is hard to come back from.

[@tuxitalk4-tuxipolitixpage772]

@@andybaldman True, but what a sad story. Unfortunately lessons are learned only after fatalities happen with time of use of the project.

[@nigelft]

@@tuxitalk4-tuxipolitixpage772 Hence the saying that Safety documentation, and regulations, are written in blood, as it frequently takes severe injuries, and even deaths, to push forward necessary changes ....

[@kathrynpupos9103]

My Uncle, Aunt and 2 cousins lived outside of Rexburg. They had their basement flooded from this.

[@carolineflansburg633]

I'm from Teton, ID, the closest city to Newdale. Ironically, we were missed by the flood, since we were at a higher elevation. Wilford, our neighboring city to the west, was completely wiped away. A part of the dam rests in my grandparents' backyard, about 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

[@pacodave4885]

Luckily the population is so low there less than a dozen people died

[@Hezkezl]

calling Wilford a city is being incredibly generous, lol. More of a community across a widespread area than any actual organized "city"... though maybe it was different before the flood, I was born and raised there and never once heard anybody call my area a city.

[@carolineflansburg633]

​@@HezkezlI'm too young to know what it was like before the flood, but from what people could tell me, it used to be about the size of Teton. Not sure why I called any of these towns "cities" though. It was two years ago.

[@caitlinriley2035]

Plainly difficult needs his own netflix series!! The way he makes it more fun than boring like most channels! Been a follower for 3 year and he never gets boring!!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!

[@VashGames]

Yes, he does. Watching him feels like watching those old National Geographic investigation pieces in a smaller scale.

[@UraTrowelie]

Completely different style but also very good channel is Fascinating Horror.

[@thejudgmentalcat]

But not Netflix...Plainly shouldn't have to rub shoulders with the likes of "Plandemic" and "Tiger King"

[@cmotdibbler4454]

The problem with netflix is they would replace John with some shitty flavour of the month actor and instead of having facts they would have drama.

[@CTRmotherheckrs]

Ayeeee my mom lived through this! She remembers my grandpa being stuck in a tree for about 7 hours until they got to him.. lots of damage was done on this bad boy lol

[@peekaloo12]

I'm curious, have you ever considered covering the Jefferson Salt Mines collapse? Made the Mississippi river flow backwards.

[@uselessDM]

That's a pretty interesting one as far as the consequences of the accident go. Considering it also turned the lake into a saltwater lake from what I remember.

[@darrylhaynes9208]

When donald had taco Tuesdays at the white house the Potomac river flowed backwards on Wednesday and was turned to saltwater.

[@seneca983]

"Made the Mississippi river flow backwards." I thought it was the Delcambre Canal. Or is that a part of the Mississippi river?

[@peekaloo12]

@@seneca983 you might be right. Honestly, it's been so long since I read about it, and a lot of what I heard was from people who were there, so there's a solid chance that there was exaggeration/misinformation lol

[@Tindometari]

Wasn't the Mississippi, but a canal connecting the lake to the sea. (You may have had a memory short-circuit to the 1811 New Madrid quakes, which apparently *did* cause part of the Mississippi to reverse flow for a short time into the newly-created Reelfoot Lake.)

[@ponchoremerize5508]

I love the funraiser for this video. As I suffer from severe OCD. Thank you! Cheers from the U.S.

[@sapphirewine7470]

im really enjoying peoples signatures above their names when it comes up, adds something personal to it

[@hamletksquid2702]

Where does that happen? I'm watching on KZbin, and I don't see anything like that.

[@Cool-Tina]

15:46 I believe

[@sapphirewine7470]

@@hamletksquid2702 was referring to 8:32

[@hamletksquid2702]

@@sapphirewine7470 - I get it now. I thought you were talking about KZbin comments. I'm constantly seeing little squares that I assume are emojis on some platform, and I thought maybe they'd added some other new feature that doesn't work for me.

[@themikecranston]

I was a kid when the Teton dam broke. My older sister spent weeks helping to muck out houses. I still remember the smell of the muddy clothes when she'd come home to wash up every couple of days. I was fascinated with it and have visited the site many times. Great video!

[@Jay-ln1co]

Also known as "mah momma didn't raise no quitter" bias.

[@abrahamlincoln9758]

The Hold My Beer fallacy

[@uselessDM]

"It'll be fine" Theory

[@cattibingo]

The "you want to get paid, right?" fallacy

[@spacebearcadet746]

"I didn't hear no bell"

[@possiblyrandom6703]

"You can't stop now bro" effect

[@Joeofthemasks]

I lived for 17 years in Parker, Idaho, a small town just north of Rexburg, and heard tons of stories from the old farmer's about this tragedy. There is even a museum in Rexburg. One of the things the older folks talked about, is that the farmer community in the area had the searching done and already started on clean up before the feds even got there

[@congruentcrib]

The hardest thing is, imagine being someone who works somewhere like this, and you ask “hey isn’t that a bad thing” and them be told “oh it’s nothing to be too concerned about”. Or even more annoying, then not telling you that there are other issues that have appeared.

[@evilempryss]

Worse is hjman element after the fact. Like being a local hired on for the job. See a problem. Tell the boss about it. Be reassured it's a good'n. Go home. Watch the dam fail and your whole town be destroyed. Feel guilt for not having (somehow, impossibly) done more.

[@oron61]

"It's probably not a problem... probably, but I'm showing a small discrepancy in... well, no, it's well-within acceptable limits..."

[@jdguevara93]

As someone from Boise it gives me a chuckle hearing it pronounced like Noise. Usually locals will have a fit if they hear Boy-zee vs Boy-see (the latter being the more commonly accepted pronounciation). That aside, glad to have stumbled on this channel. Super fascinating content 🙂

[@sicknboredoof9814]

My grandmother was effected by this living in Rexburg, hearing her stories about it when I was younger almost seemed unreal.

[@FunSizeSpamberguesa]

I have family in Rexburg that were effected by this, too. My great-grandmother was living with one of my great-aunts, and because she'd already had a heart attack, great-aunt and uncle didn't want to tell her there was actually an evacuation -- I can't remember what they did tell her, but she tried to insist on putting on her makeup and doing her hair before she'd go anywhere. She didn't appreciate being hurried along, but they got her into the car somehow. Their house got flooded with 4 feet of water, but my great-uncle was a mason and had built it out of stone, so it was still in one piece. (Unlike the poor person who rebuilt his in the shape of a boat...I wonder if it's still there.)

[@b.w.5828]

@@FunSizeSpamberguesa As of last summer the boat shaped house was still there. I didn't know it was a response to the flood though! Thanks for that!

[@sissyk6802]

@@FunSizeSpamberguesa It is.

[@monicacall7532]

I remember when this fiasco/disaster happened. My family lives in Utah about 3.5 hours south of where the dam failed. All able bodied volunteers aged 12 and older were called up to go help with the cleanup process, and my family went to Sugar City to help. The devastation was terrible. The disgusting smell of the mud is something that I will never forget as long as I live.

[@thejudgmentalcat]

"Wanted: Dam Engineer" Me: oh, that's cu-- "Dead or Alive"

[@LucasM987]

But it says damn engineer, not dam. I think the person was just desperate for an engineer to fix something after the flood.

[@rickhobson3211]

Welcome to Idaho. :P

[@Zizoor]

@@LucasM987 or it was a pun, as "dam" and "damn" sounds the exact same in Idaho accents, and the -damn- *dam* engineer ruined their house and property.

[@Wildstar40]

That sign would have seemed more serious if there was a $100,000.00 bounty reward written on it.

[@b.a.d.2086]

@@Wildstar40 In effect there was. People were furious, thousands of animals died and were floating. Today the bills would have been much higher.

[@pamreid7631]

When I was 14, we were flying to Idaho. The pilot announced that the Teton Dam was collapsing below us. I will never forget the brown water pouring from the dam and spreading out fan-like into the area below it.

[@ke7eha]

That is the most interesting pronunciation of Boise I have heard in a while. Locals pronounce it "boy see." There is a large park there named after the wife of one the founders of Morrison-Knudsen. The founders actually met while they were working on the construction of the New York canal, one of the major irrigation canals in the Boise area

[@wowgurl13]

I heard his pronunciation of Boise and I was like "what???" I had to check for someone else's correction.

[@ke7eha]

@@wowgurl13 I know, right? For a second there I thought he may have been talking about another city, but Morrison-Knudsen makes it pretty apparent.

[@NecromancyForKids]

I have only ever heard people pronounce it "Boy Z"

[@ke7eha]

@@NecromancyForKids that's the non-local pronunciation. Most in the Treasure Valley uses the see form rather than the zee form.

[@azflecstower3943]

@@ke7eha this

[@robbiebrownvox]

"Bureau of Reclamation" sounds much more ominous than it should, without context

[@samwise1790]

I'll just correct a couple things, since I'm a geologist and I've been there and literally drilled rock samples on the northern and southern sides of the dam abutments. The rock present there is not rhyolite, that implies either a composition (high silica, which it is) or rhyolite as a lava, which it isn't. What is present there are 2 members of the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff, a welded pyroclastic deposit from the yellowstone hotspot. Tuffs (or ignimbrites) are usually inherently very porous because of vesicles and gas escape structures which form during their emplacement and cooling. The tuff was emplaced hot and stayed hot for quite a while, allowing for extensive cooling joints to form which can be seen at the site very easily. Basalt is only present as a thin cap in the region, and I'm not sure I recall seeing any in the immediate area of the abutment. I'm quite interested in both engineering geology and volcanic rocks so my research trip there was quite a personal treat.

[@madeliner1682]

I don't 100% understand what you're saying, but I appreciate it nonetheless

[@renepassa1969]

Your comment should be pinned.

[@Gail1Marie]

Excellent explanation. One of the advantages of these channels is that they allow us to input from genuine experts like you. Much appreciated.

[@ro4eva]

*THANK YOU, Plainly Difficult, for covering these lesser known historical disasters! I am grateful to have you as a teacher! God bless!*

[@nocturnalicon12]

As a local of the Boise area…. It’s called Boi-seeeee!

[@RallyRallyRally]

I shall now always pronounce this wrong to annoy you

[@RadioactiveSherbet]

@@RallyRallyRally You shall do the internet proud.

[@nocturnalicon12]

@@RallyRallyRally Oh, ok.

[@YeahNo]

I’m Australian and even I know that! SMH.

[@planescaped]

I didn't even hear him say Boise in the video... maybe I thought he was saying something else. :P

[@MissBeeBonnet]

I went to college in Rexburg, and heard a lot about this experience from survivors... But I never knew the whole story of the dam itself! I had no idea there were so many warning signs... so glad they were at least able to get evacuation underway so quickly!

[@cameronjenkins6748]

I go to school in Rexburg and I've visited the dam site a few times. It is mind-boggling to walk next to what's left of the dam and imagine just how terrifying it would have been when the entire dam gave way.

[@natecus4926]

Shout out from Fremont county, thank you for covering this disaster that most have never heard of

[@spider0804]

Opponents: Yo you built the dam on a cave complex, this area is unstable. Dam builders: No we didn't, quick fill it in! USGS: Hey it is unstable and probably in danger. Dam builders: No u.

[@cris_261]

Dam builders after the flood: ah, we may have screwed up. Opponents: ya think?!

[@wanderingthewastes6159]

I put the blame on the bureau, since it's literally their job to tell if the project is safe, the builders just did the job they had been given explicit permission to do.

[@morganosborne9258]

I remember this disaster. As we all know, many disasters are covered only regionally. Thanks for bringing us a deeper insight into the causes and outcomes.

[@Clancyfan004]

Can you do the Minneapolis i-35 bridge collapse. I was there when it happened but not on it. Would love a technical accident report in your format. Your explanations are exceptional. Always enjoy them.

[@DigitalAlmond]

Really really simple EIL5: truss Bridges have fairly little to no redundancy. During routine maintenance a crack in a gusset plate (a connection between two truss members) was missed. It continued to be ignored until the plate - and thus the bridge - failed.

[@wdf70]

So...this dam was basically a giant sand castle? What did they expect would happen?

[@joefox9875]

Yes, but they 'compressed' the silt. I mean, they patted it extra hard.

[@QT5656]

@@joefox9875 👏 👏 👏 😂

[@Tindometari]

That's what an embankment dam basically is: Sand, rock, rip-rap ... and a hydraulic barrier in the centre, of packed-down clay fines. There are plenty of earthen embankment dams, some of which have been standing without problems for well over a century. They work fine ... unless water pipes its way across. Then they don't work at all, and they go big and fast.

[@seand.g423]

The whole thing to hold up and work absolutely perfectly "becuz hooman..." obviously...

[@G274Me]

The dam was fine, although the foundation was too shallow. The canyon wall was the issue.

[@s.v.berezin1562]

It's not easy to make 2D images illustrate the dam well, but you have done a splendid job! Great work, as always!

[@Chad_Thundercock]

A dam good job, you might say.

[@BellaBarossa]

I'm sure it's already been pointed out a dozen times, but the basement rock in the area is 'basalt', not 'balsalt'. Basalt is a dark, dense volcanic rock that, yes, can be very porous due to trapped gases creating bubbles, or 'vesicles'.

[@Catman2123]

I was really not expecting a Jonestown crossover.

[@TheMouseAvenger]

Me, neither! XD (I'm bloody obsessed with that story!)

[@gabbyn978]

When you mentioned that failures might be caused because of financial reasons, I had to think of the Wei Guan Golden Dragon building in Tainan that collapsed, because of an earthquake on February 6th, 2016 in Taiwan, and - concrete pillars that had been 'reinforced' with depleted oil and paint canisters.

[@deonmurphy6383]

I worked for USBR after this event and investigation. One comment I heard was that Teton was done by the “second stringers” as the “first stringers” were focused on another project. That was the Grand Coulee Dam extension and Third Powerplant, which completed in 1974.

[@jackalopejane2021]

Other than continually mispronouncing “Teton,” this was an informative and thorough analysis of the failure. Having had only a tangential relationship with this event I greatly appreciate the time and detail of your presentation.Thank you

[@johnchedsey1306]

I visited the site of the dam a few years ago. It's a very surreal scene as the center of the dam still stands, but you can see the layers of material used to build it. And knowing that once upon a time people died because of this dam failure is quite chilling.

[@ScolioticTrombone]

As someone who lives in the Teton area, I'm really glad you made this video :)

[@sirarietichee7260]

I am shocked beyond beleif that they allowed the dam's structure to be compacted so loosely. I was a Soils/Earthworks tester for a 3rd party Special Inspections company for a few years and the industry standard for nearly every type of earthwork is 95% compaction. Even greenspaces in parking lots and storefronts have to be at least 90% compaction. So when you said they had a mixed-grain fill for the Zone 1 core I already had question marks floating above my head, especially when you said that the Department thought it would be impervious to water which is not true and is laughable, but only 70% compaction for Zone 2 is just insane by modern standards.

[@annohalloran6020]

The channel is better every week. It started great and gets better. Much education and dry humor on offer. And the weather reports are enjoyable.

[@GilliganFan6467]

My mother is, indirectly, a survivor of this. A series of events prevented her, her siblings, and my grandfather from being directly beneath the dam fishing when it failed.

[@pictsidhe6471]

Lots of panicked workers telling them to run like hell?

[@GilliganFan6467]

@@pictsidhe6471 nope. Circumstance preventing a fishing trip from happening. They would have been directly below the dam if something didn’t interfere.

[@TheKetsa]

To think we have 2000 years old Roman dams still standing...

[@UraTrowelie]

Your channel is like if Walt Disney did disaster stories. The theme music, the light heartedness. Good stuff.

[@craighatch3221]

I live here in Rexburg Idaho, I was 10 years old when it happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. Thank for the video, you did a good job.👍

[@thomasbell7033]

As usual, your research and presentation were immaculate. Thanks from Brooklyn.

[@hellocloverkitty]

Thank you for raising money and awareness of OCD! I even checked out the foundation and found a support group I might join!

[@christiangibbs8534]

This happened a couple of months before my 4th Birthday. I distinctly remember my father taking my brother and I down to the railroad crossing a mile from our home to get a good view of Main street. I couldn't believe that there were so many cars under the water. My brother and were yammering the whole time, but my dad never spoke a word. He just stood there, staring. I can't begin to understand what would have been going through his mind at that time, seeing his home town deserted and buried under 4 feet of water.

[@BReal-10EC]

I am in construction supply industry, and completion bias is still very much a thing. Was involved in a lawsuit with a large custom house a long time ago where the contractor himself redrew the plan to remove the annoying steel beams from the basement and didn't give me those plans. They had a house that was obviously failing (extreme sagging) at one spot. The trim that was down that hallway perfectly matched the dip in the floor with zero no cracks even in the paint. That meant when they were finishing the house the dip was already there and they ignored it to get it done. EDIT- the home owner had another contractor brace up under this point shortly after completion to keep it from continuing to come down.

[@anndykeman6409]

I love your videos. I have learned so much from them. I think they should be a part of a required course for high school students to raise awareness of these issues and get people talking about what should have been to prevent these disasters. Thank you for your hard work and amazing research.

[@KertaDrake]

The sunk cost fallacy mixed with large engineering projects never ends well...

[@trulyinfamous]

People sure do love that sunken cost fallacy, don't they? A lot of disasters can be explained by that.

[@abrahamlincoln9758]

"A+B+C=D If D is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." "What car company did you say you work for?" "A MAJOR one."

[@recklessroges]

I think the sunken cost fallacy explains many relationships.

[@WobblesandBean]

Hi Wilford

[@greenanubis]

"Failure is not an option." Confidence, eh?

[@PercivalBlakeney]

@@abrahamlincoln9758 You said that you would say that, Sir!

[@Shhimhiding]

You mentioned the Jim Jones incident... you should absolutely do episodes over cult incidents. The way you structure videos is fantastic listening material.

[@ajfurnari2448]

No matter what your trade, a good secondary goal in life is to never have your name/company/product/structure in a video with the opening music

[@kevinblatter2369]

Thank you for making this video. I arrived in Idaho Falls a week after the dam failure to work on my uncle's farm for the summer. I have lots of extended family in eastern Idaho and all were affected, either physically or emotionally. But Idahoans are a fiercely independent mindset and prided themselves on recovering and getting back to normal before the Feds even arrived. Each weekend that summer my cousins and I were off to somewhere in the affected area to work on one service project or another. The subject of the flood is still a common topic of conversation among the older generation in cities like Rexburg, Sugar City and Rigby.

[@feistyfrog6949]

My town is right underneath a dam, in a valley. A couple years back, one of the spillways stopped working, and they resorted to using a spillway that hadn't been used since the 70s. It was just a total disaster. The kicker is that this dam has had many checkups, and issues were brought up, but ignored. It was structurally compromised. 10s of thousands of people were displaced thinking that their homes were going to get flooded.

[@jeremyreber7294]

I work with a gentleman who was a project engineer at this job when it failed. Yes , he's over 80 and has been with PKS for 55 years. He said it was an unimaginable experience to witness firsthand. One of the fatalities was a kiewit employee trying to move equipment out of the path. It was a sad deal for all affected.

[@mrwri]

*looks nervously at the Three Gorges Dam*

[@scottydu81]

Me silently: break break break break break break…. 🍿😎

[@FenianAn1mal]

All these dam failure vids keep giving me ptsd. I was once a guard at San Vincente dam in San diego. I worked graveyard shift and every once in awhile a fault in the system would set the alarm siren of the dam off for no reason. Regardless to say whenever it happened i wished I was wearing brown pants. Fascinating vidya as always, keep up the good work.

[@rpeterson9182]

My Uncle and Aunt lived in Rexburg, ID when this happened. They spent that night slogging through waist high flood waters getting elderly people out of their homes to higher ground. There’s a memorial at the university in Rexburg to this disaster. 🥺

[@arnepianocanada]

Congratulations. Your matter-of-fact presentation lets the facts speak, and - in the absence of over-dramatic voice work or turgid musical backing - allows us to feel our own emotional reactions.

[@mikki3740]

These videos are so well-researched! Ok at this point in history, whenever a a project like this is built, there literally needs to be a governmental contract that states "If this results in loss of life, these people will be held responsible. Sign here." And let them chew on that before they move forward. It's insane to that these incompetent, over-confident men get treated like boys and skate away with a slap on the wrist time and time again.

[@36736fps]

Completion bias was an obvious factor in my 40 year engineering career which included design and construction of nuclear power plants. It is also a factor causing projects like military weapon systems to be dragged out well after it becomes obvious that the system is too expensive, or outdated, or won't work. Completion bias also sometimes has deadly consequences over a very short time scale; for example the Challenger disaster where the pressure to launch today ignored the danger that day, and the Chernobyl catastrophe where the pressure to conduct a delayed test ignored the danger introduced by the delay.

[@drboze6781]

Morrison-Knudsen used to be one of the world's greatest general contracting and civil engineering firms. By the 70s they seemed to have lost their way. Corporate senility?

[@seand.g423]

You know you're gonna get strung up by... _All_ the fucking Statesiders for those last two words, right?

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

I remember when this happened. I was 6 years old, my brother was 10, and my sister was 11. My family lived in northwest Wyoming. We kids were home with mom (school was out for the summer), my father was working, and suddenly the Emergency Broadcast System came on saying that the Teton Dam has broken! At first we were freaking out thinking they were talking about the Jackson Lake Dam, which would've wiped us out. Jackson Lake covers 40 square miles and is over 400 feet deep. We had a mountain literally right out our back door whose summit was 2000 feet above the valley and were getting ready to head out the back door and start hiking up. But then we realized it was on the Idaho side of the Teton range. Our TV stations were all Idaho and the news helicopter footage was unbelievable. There were literally houses floating away and we were seeing towns getting flooded out in real-time. Crazy stuff for a 6 year old to be seeing.

[@ljn369]

There's a museum in Rexburg that has an escape room where you have to warn people about the dam about to fall and then get yourself out before it breaks.

[@petrofilmeurope]

Well made. It is the combined mistakes of many sources which leads to a catastrophe, or downward spiraling development. Greetings from Oslo

[@bensantos3882]

It's sad when a dam fails and cause human lose of life / or leaving a huge toxic failure (example of a tailings dam which unleashes Cobalt, Cadium, Mercury, Lead or even Uranium into the ecosystem.

[@lucienthurgood4550]

This is part of my town's history, great to hear this story go beyond the city limits!

[@aloesecretinc]

I feel the same.. Rexburg boy here..

[@n.l.vannstallings4664]

Completely heartbreaking for the people involved and think of all the innocent animals that could not evacuate

[@themortimusprime9012]

Bro absolutely just love the videos of industrial and damn disasters frustrating and tragic but absolutely fascinating how us as human are so pro to just overlook problems

[@EATSLEEPDRIVE2002]

awesome video as always, my man! Here’s another topic that you might enjoy doing a video on: the lake Peigneur salt mine collapse in Louisiana in 1980. They were drilling for oil in a lake, and accidentally drilled into a salt mine. And it had the effect of pulling the drain plug in a bathtub

[@jimrossi7708]

This was by far the best explanation I have heard on what happened because at this time I was just getting settled into my new home in Northern Maine, 🇺🇸 , keep up the great work and have found all your you-tube works really interesting and well done 👍🏼 !!

[@timhinchcliffe5372]

Here in Queensland Australia, we have on a number of occasions sort the advice of the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for investigations into our own dam issues. With the amount of spectacular dam failures in the US, it is no wonder why the yanks would be world leading experts in this field.

[@coopdeville377]

I am nearing the completion of an engineering project in Rexburg and Madison County, Idaho. I knew of this disaster but didn't realize the location. I'm quite familiar with basalt and rhyolite. Both are volcanic and score around 6 on the Mohs hardness scale. The rock, however, is quite porous. Great for boring and trenching cable (my field) but not for structural engineering. On my next trip for the inspection of the project, I am going to look for remnants of this failed project. Thank you, John.

[@embyquinn]

I heard the name Leo Ryan and immediately made the connection. Sad that the only thing we remember him for is his murder by the People's Temple...

[@TheMouseAvenger]

But at least he perished a hero! *(salutes his spirit)*

[@SasquatchTrevor]

I studied construction management at BYU-I, Rexburg, which is 45 mins west of the Teton Dam site. Some of my teachers, who grew up in the area, remember the disaster well. After learning about how the dam was constructed and how it failed, I always chuckle about how the dam engineers thought they could just fill all the cracks and gaps along canyon walls with concrete and that would be enough. The canyon walls are basalt. No amount of concrete is going to be enough to stop water from going around a substance that is porous and saturating the insides of an earthen dam to point of failure.

[@SasquatchTrevor]

There are also lava tubes all over the area as it is on the Snake River plain. The Snake River plain was carved out by the same hot spot that now currently sits under Yellowstone. The whole plain is basaltic lava flows.

[@williammorris4327]

My grandfather worked in this dam. He walked off the job. And told them it would fail. The second time he had to fill in saturation back fill. He had enough.

[@jorgecallico9177]

Very good video. Thank you John. Actually I have long been apprised of the Teton Dam failure since reading the excellent book written by Marc Reisner, "Cadillac Desert" A 1986 book since turned into a fantastic documentary on PBS.

[@vickiamundsen2933]

Outstanding book, everyone should read it.

[@paulcarlsen4088]

I was a wee lad when this happened. My mum and dad volunteered with our church to help clean up the mess every weekend for about a month. They said there were dead cows everywhere, and homes turned in their foundations.

[@lulabelle5452]

It's so interesting hearing about this. I've lived in Idaho Falls in 2017 & now Rexburg 2022. The fact that he mentions a company from Omaha, Nebraska winning the bid made me shocked cuz I met my ex-husband in Lexington, Nebraska. Born & raised the first 19yrs of my life in Fayetteville/Springdale, Arkansas. This was such a good documentary.

[@pastorjerrykliner3162]

The ecological and human damage we have done through dam building is astounding.

[@kentonbenoit9629]

Ya cause you could definitely do better 😒

[@kentonbenoit9629]

🙉

[@boobgoogler]

@@kentonbenoit9629 this is such an unbelievably shallow mindset. You don’t need to be a chef to know that dog shit tastes bad

[@kentonbenoit9629]

@@boobgoogler you dont need to reply twice for me to understand your mama drank with you 🙄

[@kentonbenoit9629]

@@boobgoogler honestly tell me how to build a dam the right way then 🤗