Elliot Lake’s Deadly Design Flaw - Massive Engineering Mistakes - Engineering Documentary

Massive Engineering Mistakes - S03 E04
Watch as we uncover the catastrophic failures that led to the Elliot Lake Collapse, Missouri Dam Failure, Melbourne Building Fire, and Arkansas Oil Spill. These engineering nightmares tell tales of caution for future builds!
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Massive Engineering Mistakes is a riveting series that explores the daunting realm of architectural blunders and engineering catastrophes. From gravity-defying towers on the brink of collapse to bridges built upside-down and airports slowly sinking into the sea, these ambitious missteps redefine the boundaries of scientific innovation. Yet amidst chaos, the genius of human ingenuity shines, crafting solutions as awe-inspiring as the disasters themselves. Unveiling the precarious balance between triumph and failure, this show offers a thrilling journey into the world of spectacular engineering errors and their extraordinary rectifications.
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Welcome to Banijay Science, your premier destination for full-length scientific documentaries and intriguing tales from the realms of engineering, technology, and beyond. Banijay Science showcases real-world applications, top-tier documentaries, and award-winning TV shows that engage and enlighten.
Immerse yourself in the captivating world of science and engineering, with content from renowned series like Mythbusters and Abandoned Engineering.
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#fulldocumentaries #sciencestories #factual #science #engineering #technology

[@21x9Ratio]

Grady from Practical Engineering spotted! 😂

[@scpowered]

I'm not going to lie. I got a little excited when i saw him! 😄

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

So I was only listening the first time he popped up and I was like "hey, was that Grady..?!" 😂

[@PeaceLoveUnityRespect]

I saw him and 'm like that's that guy from KZbin he's on tv!

[@spideywhiplash]

I thought the same thing! An added extra bonus of Grady sprinkled in to this show makes it better!

[@CONCERTMANchicago]

COOL Maroge

[@jmlebresco]

Leaked for 30 years…No warning before collapse🙄

[@michaelreid2329]

I think the leaking was in itself the warning.

[@jbdragon3295]

The building was leaking before it opened. They should never allowed cars on the roof until the leaking was fixed or never allowed cars on the roof ever. Leaking leaks to rust. Just leads to weakening metal. Why was this ignored for the last 30 years? They knew it was leaking the whole time. This was 100% prevetable.

[@jimmywilliams9824]

30 years of warnings with every drop of water !

[@user-or4hs7xq9u]

Canadians are very placid, maybe they didn't want to make a fuss

[@chriscross7494]

@@michaelreid2329 As were those cracks you can see where it collapses.

[@colinsmith1495]

This is why 'failsafe' engineering is important. 'Failsafe' doesn't mean it is safe from failure. Nothing ever is. Failsafe means it's designed to fail in a safe way. EVERY retaining wall will fail, sooner or later. EVERY sensor will give false readings, eventually. You're putting massive amounts of water on top of a mountain. That's not where it would naturally go. Plan for it to get out of there in ways you don't want it to.

[@darkracer1252]

personally i would plan for it to get out of there in ways that i DO want it to. but that's just me.

[@ianbelletti6241]

​​@@darkracer1252that's already a part of the design. What he's talking about is planning the design to control what happens when the inevitable failure does occur. That's one of the reasons overflow spillways are created. It's inevitable that an overflow will occur so instead of letting it just overflow and destroy the dam you create a reinforced section designed to handle overflow waters preventing a breach. The whole idea is about looking at failure modes and figuring out how to prevent or control the failure in a way that minimizes damage, especially to the surrounding areas.

[@JosephBoxmeyer]

​@@ianbelletti6241thanks, a good, well worded and patiently presented explanation.

[@paradiseisland69]

Roman Concrete and Granite doesn't fail.

[@enhancedphysique6452]

😂 how are the damn 8500 year old walls up but yall can't build one woth nasa beh8nd ya?😂 fr though

[@calj01]

If the mall was leaking water before it even opened, then the city is partly responsible because it should have been red tagged on final inspection. Good enough IS NOT good enough

[@jamiebraswell5520]

Exactly. Instead they pretended like it was no big deal for thirty years. I don't understand that. And seriously, would that not eventually have turned into a mold problem as well? But hey, just ignore it for three decades. It has been doing this for 29 years, so I think we are in the clear!!!😅

[@jimmywilliams9824]

Like sweeping it under the carpet, at the final inspection , crazy,nothing to see here sign sign sign😢

[@bigshaggy6163]

right they said it was leaking before it ever opened

[@jeannineflores3623]

This show has a lot of hard lessons paid in people’s lives and broken hearts 💔. We had an architecture disaster here in New Orleans. 3 men lost their lives, including one who had been reporting problems with construction site. Our community still mourns. 😢

[@zzzubmno2755]

I live in Sudbury Ontario, not far from Elliot Lake. The mall there was almost identical to the mall here in downtown Sudbury. The mall in Sudbury was just as bad. There were countless inspections and millions spent to fix the Sudbury mall. Everyone seen the rust, and parts of the roof were sagging due to asphalt being laid each time pot holes in the roof garage formed. It was a disaster just waiting to happen. If it wasn't the Elliot Lake mall collapse, the Sudbury mall would have collapsed long ago. To this day, May 2024, I refuse to go in the disaster of a mall just waiting to happen. But why was it allowed to happen? Elliot Lake and Sudbury have identical climates. You didn't need to be an engineer to notice the buildings were in disarray, you can see the leaks and the sags and the rust. I have an anecdote that would explain exactly what caused the Elliot Lake mall collapse. I use to live in an apartment on the Kingsway in Sudbury. It was a 3 story walk up, I lived on the 3rd floor. The landlord at the time was an old lady who owned the building for a long time, and it was her husband that did any repairs. There were small leaks on the roof, and the building needed a lot of repair. The couple was old and the repairs needed were too great for an old man, and too costly, so they sold building to a number company in Toronto. Repairs were never done, the people that ran the building were basically slum lords and no money was put into the building. One summer, in June and July, there were many storms with heavy rain. The roof would leak, bucks would be put in the hallways and people complained, but nothing was done. All we were told is they were looking for a contractor to fix the roof. The city was called, they ordered the manager to make repairs to the roof, and we were all told, the roof was going to be repaired. That never happened. Storms kept coming, and the roof leaked more and more. Once again, the city (by-law officer) came and ordered repairs, but none were done. What the tenants didn't know, the old guy that use to do the repairs, didn't know what he was doing. When leaks would start, he would go up on the roof and poor a bunch of tar to patch things up. Over time, on hot days, that tar would melt and flow into the storm drains on the flat top roof. The drains were plugged up and water had nowhere to go and just accumulated. That summer was really hot, and there were many heavy rains. Over four feet of water pooled on the roof and one afternoon, the roof exceeded its max weight capacity and started to collapses. Water poured in the hallways outside my apartment like Niagara Falls. The fire department came, shut down the electricity, evacuated everyone and condemned the apartment until the ordered repairs were met. The building manager cut out some of the old pipes that were clogged, and did some patch work on the roof, and some people were allowed to move back with the promise repairs would be done. Proper repairs were never done. They defaulted on payments to the contractor that did some repairs, same with the electricity bills that mounted to over $50,000. The place stunk, people complained to the city, nothing was done. After, like a year, the city finally got tired of people complaining and condemned the building. I lost all my belongings, because the city failed to force the new landlords to compliance and allowed the building to degrade to the point it was a major hazard. It was clear the owners of the building never had any intentions to fix the building and it was clear the city had no intentions to do anything about it. The Elliot Lake mall, and the Sudbury mall were allowed to become disasters because both cities turned a blind eye and accepted the "Ya, were are fixing it, we are hiring contractors bla bla bla" BS. In my case, the city didn't do anything until it was costing them 10s of thousands. City inspectors need to do their jobs and the city needs to enforce the penalties, and put people in jail for not doing their job. It wasn't snow and salt that caused the Elliot Lake Collapse, it is useless city council members and workers that didn't do their jobs to prevent it from happening in the first place.

[@woodydroneson]

With the shopping Mall, calling it an Engineering failure is untrue, the fact is that there were leakage issues from the start and instead of fixing the roof waterproofing they stupidly and I would say neglectfully left it to leak for 30 years until the rusted structure could not support the car park any more. The building owners should be held responsible for the loss of life. Not an Engineering Fail, the Architects should have been partially blamed for the waterproofing only and forced to claim of insurance to get the building fixed 30 years earlier, but to allow the water to leak for 30 years that is just madness.

[@leybraith3561]

Not only ignore the leak but presumably permit salt to be distributed on the icy roof. I agree in Not calling it an engineering failure as the short term outcome was entirely predictable. Talk about pouring salt on a wound!

[@SadisticSenpai61]

And the building inspectors should also be questioned. Why didn't they flag it? The thing was leaking before it even opened! How did they not think that was important?!

[@KrisRogos]

Australia might have learned from its building fire. The UK is a whole other thing. There are 1000s who still live in flats in dangerous buildings they can't sell and can't afford to fix, even though our similar tragedy was actually fatal. 💚

[@robertpeters9438]

I toured that plant as an entering student and I asked how do you sense when it is full. They said a float with a microswitch. I said that is too likely to fail! They said it was inspected daily. And it overtopped.

[@benchapple1583]

So they had been told, by you, and still didn't install another couple of switches!

[@armandhammer9617]

These people need to invest in a transom.

[@user-or4hs7xq9u]

Told it was safe and effective (and it wasn't)

[@williamdowling7718]

What a pleasant surprise to see Grady as a talking head giving expert commentary! I find his engineering style very practical.

[@janhaugen6034]

the dude from Practical Engineering XD

[@spideywhiplash]

That be the Awesome Grady Dude!

[@stevenhanley2371]

John Goodman! XD

[@grb454]

It's outstanding the mall resists 30 years, but as usual, even seeing proof of leak, nothing done until it's too late, money first is the rule.

[@matthewticer8686]

A lot of the building were only ment to have a lifespan of about 25years wich is why ceos think when it lasts longer that it’s better and doesn’t need attention even if there is evidence to prove it

[@chriscross7494]

Seeing the roof cracking didn't do anything for them either and so they just tarred over them. I knew where it was going to fail by looking at them.

[@ronpeacock9939]

The fact that with 4 disasters.. only 2 fatalities.. that alone is amazing.. still, mistakes can be costly..

[@nomaschalupas2453]

Should have used flex seal on that roof and flex tape on that dam.

[@patrickwilson6918]

Weird flex but ok 🥸

[@doug.a.2665]

good one! ..luv it!

[@cdodge2996]

"Now, that's a lot of damage"

[@doug.a.2665]

I remember driving my Jeep TJ up onto the roof parking lot at the Algo Mall back in Dec. of 2005. It was a cold night with slushy snow on the lot and I remember backing it up to a spot across from the entrance door ...just as I stepped out onto the roof parking, a pickup truck had come up the slope leading to the parking and crossed the lot in front of me heading for a closer spot near the door of the building ..as he was he passed by I felt the parking lot shake under my feet ..I remember thinking "oh my gawd"! It was a very unsettling feeling so much so that I jumped back in the Jeep and quickly drove down to the ground level parking. Years later I heard about what happened to it and it really bothered me that I never mentioned it to anyone ..would they have listened to me? There must have been others who experienced similar shaking as I did, I don't think the driver of the pickup would have noticed it unless he stepped out of his vehicle like I did just when someone drove across the lot ..maybe they considered it normal occurrence. I wasn't from Elliot Lake, it was my first visit. I did return to the mall on occasions when I was up for shopping but I never would park on that roof ever again! I do remember the buckets and mops and the cordoned off areas near the bottom of the escalator ...wish I had said something ..but to who?? ..in retrospect the ones running the mall would have buried it.

[@gabriellafox7948]

Bless your heart, Doug, but please don’t take on this responsibility. They may have documented it, but more than likely not take action. I believe it’s a true testament, though listening to your gut feeling. I believe God whispers in our ears, it’s up to us to listen. I pray that you place the cross as it’s not your burden to bear. May the good Lord shine his face upon you and give you his precious peace🙏🏻❤️🇨🇦

[@chriscross7494]

@@gabriellafox7948 From how the treated those cracks I can tell you they would have ignored him.

[@Jackice]

surprised Grenfell Tower fire wasn't in this video.

[@benchapple1583]

There was a similar incident in London. Grenfell Towers. The cause was the same, flammable cladding. Not so lucky that time- 72 dead. We just never learn.

[@k53847]

There was a flurry of similar fires that culminated in Grenfell. The Torch Tower fire in Dubai in 2015, for example. UK fire safety rules were weak, and enforcement of the weak rules was also terrible. On the bright side the local government saved about 50,000 pounds by not using the non-combustible core...

[@martentrudeau6948]

Wrapping a residential skyscraper in combustible cladding is stupid, mindless and ignorant too. This is not hidden knowledge, it's a basic government failure that allowed this kind of construction, it's not acceptable.

[@richardmccann4815]

​@@martentrudeau6948Our govts are failing us constantly now. Allowing mass illegal immigration, money for murderers, epstein episode.

[@martentrudeau6948]

@@richardmccann4815 ~ Our governments are incorporated. Governments and corporations run on credit and the creditors run the world. "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." All governments and corporations are a debt slave to their lenders. Governments are enforcing the Glibelist (the powers that be) to take over the world. They can conjure all the money they need to own and control the world.

[@bigshaggy6163]

did either fall though?? Nope!

[@paulbunion6233]

I lived there ! on the day it collapsed I was on my way back to Elliot Lake where I lived and heard about it on the radio . I went directly to the mall anticipating to at the very least, donate blood or go get coffee. The place WAS DESERTED . There were NO rescuers working around the clock, nothing. Two women, I learned later were still inside and alive apparently. The local geniuses had decided that the scene was "too dangerous" to work, any rescue equipment was several hours away at best, so they just left the place overnight. Remember, this was a logging and mining town. FULL of experienced people. There was plenty of privately owned equipment and the people to operate it and even if somewhat unconventionally, they were willing and able to attempt rescuing the two women still alive at that time. THEY WERE PREVENTED FROM TRYING. I knew these people and had heard many stories of what they had done over the years. I am sure that they could have saved these women. It was more than 24 hours before any attempt was made by which time it was way too late. The collapse was a disaster for sure, the death of the two women was borderline criminal by not allowing locals to attempt a rescue.

[@thomasbell7033]

Wow, that is, at best, incompetence, at worst, cowardice. I hope the supervising first responders were all cashiered and prevented from working the same job elsewhere. However, as an old print journalist who has covered many disasters, from apartment building fires, to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, to 9/11, I know that's not likely.

[@paulbunion6233]

@@thomasbell7033 when I turned up a few hours after the initial collapse I thought I heard the news wrong. THERE WAS NO ONE THERE. I shopped in that mall all the time as did most Elliot Lake residents. It was surreal. Had I not seen it with my eyes, I too would doubt my recounting of the events.

[@f.d.6667]

*Remember when buildings were made from non flammable materials?* ... Ah, those were the times! Cladding a building in polyethylene is beyond stupid. PE is basically a fancy variant of candle wax. And when exposed to enough heat, it will of course ignite. Plastic in building cladding has claimed so many lives already, just the IDEA of wrapping a building in highly flammable material is preposterous. However, this is exactly what is required in many Western countries these days, you know, mostly because of the -Holy Climate Church and a decreasing scientific literacy- ... ignorance of crowd-pleasing politicians.

[@takumi2023]

i think it was more of the cost cutting builders/designers than anything else. it always go back to the bottom line.

[@JohnWatkinsUK]

The video states that the plastic core covering was NOT compliant with building regulations. It was supposed to be non-combustible mineral fibre core. The politicians had ensured that the scientific literacy was there, those that were required to implement it failed.

[@beyondEV]

politicians in "two" party states are always extremely donor pelasing. Which is why, you generally don't have much in terms of inspections. They been cut. "Two", because it's actually one, just pretending to be a left and a right wing party. It's even mentioned, it wasn't approved.

[@SadisticSenpai61]

Nah, it's 100% about profits. Money makes the world go round and all that.

[@rickoshay6554]

I love these oh so descriptive analogies! How powerful they are in helping the average viewer understand something they could barely imagine otherwise. And who among us doesn't immediately relate to "2000 Olympic swimming pools" of water being dumped "over the side?"

[@Rusty-METAL-J]

Good, Great, Wonderful job, Melbourne firefighters. That was a SupaKewl job saving lives in that high-rise fire.

[@user-fq7vs8dl5k]

The first video the woman said the roof collapsed with no warning. 30 years of water leaking was the warning.

[@tamasgyori2399]

Most engineering disasters come from cutting costs to feed greedy pockets.

[@rodpaget9796]

And just cheap thinking.....and money wasted

[@mofayer]

I just find it so comical when people blame other people for being greedy. Everyone is greedy, everyone always looks to save a buck, for a discount. It's just human nature. If it weren't we wouldn't need regulations.

[@peterlavelle3261]

@@mofayer and therein lies the problem... the politicians that write the regulations are paid-off by lobbying, corporate greed, backhanders and a cushty board position once people have died and few bucks were saved

[@FatYokel]

@@mofayer How else can bad behavior be regulated by society without first addressing it? Also just fyi making an argument from a place of 'it's nature' is fallacious.

[@rustyneuron]

Its the classic swiss cheese model. its not very often that all the holes line up. Then, in hindsight, there are a whole gaggle of places where it could have been stopped. Most of the time no one person doing the wrong thing (e.g. being greedy, hurrying, being carless, etc) seems that big of a deal, but line them all up and brand new mall+32 years=disaster scene.

[@KathrynsWorldWildfireTracking]

The recent Oroville Dam Spillway collapse disaster - exactly the same scenario. Construction companies lying their butts off. _Yeah! We built on top of bedrock. No no, we weren't lazy and put it on soil! Bedrock, yes, we put it on bedrock._ How many other dams are unsafe due to paid-off or lazy inspectors, and psychopathic construction company brass? Oregon's Trojan Nuclear power plant cooling towers were found to be built unsafe, not to code. Ready to collapse in a very minor quake. They were imploded before a disaster could happen. But how many engineering ticking time bombs remain?

[@NjK601]

It's great to get more context on The Algo Mall collapse, living in Southwestern Ontario, it's so easy to forget about some of these northern communities.

[@johnackley3982]

"this failure was so sudden", ummm no it was failing for 30 years

[@robertansley5526]

I remember when the provincial Special Response Team or something like that, the elite rescuers, were afraid to go in to rescue two women that people could hear screaming. The former miners, some of them specialized in mine rescue were prevented from going in. That special "provincial" team should have been disbanded after this and the members should have been made into parking attendants, an obviously useful profession for them. This was a sad tragedy which I'm sure came down to money. RIP to the two women who died because of decisions made by morons. My opinion.

[@jeffschroeder4805]

Why don't you see more 30 year old cars on the roads in Canada? Road salt -> corrosion. Rooftop parking lot full of cars dripping salt water. I suspect that many parking ramps in snow country would show similar damage ........ if they managed to survive that long.

[@dansihvonen8218]

It only becomes a problem if the water seeps into the concrete.

[@SadisticSenpai61]

Parking garages/ramps in our climate tend to get resurfaced/inspected/etc. But they also have to be extremely robust in holding up all that weight to begin with - much more than a shopping center with rooftop parking would. After all, there's only one layer of cars on that roof that needs to be supported, unlike with a parking ramp which can have multiple floors of vehicles on it. There's also the fact that the average weight of vehicles have increased over the decades, even as car manufacturers have shifted to lighter weight materials. And the average size of vehicles have also increased pretty drastically with SUVs even taking over what used to be sedan models in recent years. But that has to do with the fact that SUVs occupy a regulatory loophole that still hasn't been addressed in the US (and probably in Canada as well).

[@brian13105]

Only a NY'er would say "I don't see any one around me committing a crime so maybe crime isn't a problem ". You are so used to having criminals , crazies and just unstable individuals all around that if a murder isn't going on right in front of your eyes it's a plus . It used to be that criminal activities were actually hidden from the general population by the criminals because the general population took a dim view of such activity and tended to do something about it , even if that was just reporting it to the police .

[@lindawalker8949]

I call bullcrap about the rescue efforts as they would not permit the men (who were miners by trade) to go in and get the then alive trapped inside. The building was never built to permit parking on top.

[@paulbunion6233]

just read your post after mine, look at paulbunion , fully agree with you

[@michaelreid2329]

I used live in a suburb on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia where the community of Tuggerah use a 2 level shopping centre with roof top parking. Parts of the shopping centre at the eastern end have been plagued by a leaking roof whenever rain falls. We have moved from that area and note that the age of the centre would be approaching 30 years. I wonder who inspects the mall?

[@SadisticSenpai61]

The city should have building inspectors. Granted, they did say that one of the problems was the particular type of slabs they used, but the abundant leaking would indicate a problem with the water proofing on the roof. At best, they just need to redo the roof. At worst... yeah. Honestly, I'm surprised there's still buildings with that design around. Parking lots beneath the building have tended to fare a lot better and have less maintenance issues long-term. Not having road grit, oil, and heavy vehicles on a roof really does expand the life of a roof, weirdly enough.

[@michaelreid2329]

However no ice or snow build up in Tuggerrah. I guess that means we have longer

[@SadisticSenpai61]

@@michaelreid2329 Yeah, the lack of road salt in particular would have a pretty big impact. There's a reason everyone in the Northern US/Canada just accepts rust on the undercarriage of our vehicles as normal. There's just no avoiding it with all the road salt in the winters.

[@markluhman8940]

Solar and wind is not clean or renewable. The both require massive materials that take huge amount of mining and processing of those material. Solar panels and wind mill have huge recycling problems.

[@philipoakley5498]

Maybe so, but much better than the pollutions from hydrocarbon extraction and usage. The old existing ways are good, until they are not!

[@SadisticSenpai61]

Wind could be more renewable. They _could_ recycle the old parts. They just don't because that isn't "profitable." At the end of the day, it always comes down to profits. It's the same thing with all the stuff we could recycle, but don't. There's a surprising number of stuff that is claimed to be recycled but isn't. Instead, it just ends up in a landfill. If not where it was produced, then in some poor 3rd world country that gets paid to take our trash. There's no getting around solar panels requiring rare earth minerals at this point. That is a major issue - especially when said rare earth minerals are sourced from... mines that are both very dangerous and abusive towards its labor (and/or uses child labor). But that latter part is a problem with the lack of concern for safety and/or care for the workers. It could be addressed and changed - but that would require paying even more money for those materials, which the corporations buying said materials will resist as long as they can.

[@tymz-r-achangin]

I dont care what computers or testings that were done before the dam was built! That dam looks seriously anemic. If they built that thing anywhere near me and my family, I would seriously be looking for a new area to live in.

[@jamiebraswell5520]

I agree. How many times in the past have dams been built and promised to be safe, yet unforseen design flaws or short cuts lead to catastrophic failure? There is absolutely no way that I would live beneath a dam any more than I would live on the slope of a volcano. I just could not rest easily knowing that a huge reservoir of water was looming over my head, held back by a man-made structure.

[@beyondEV]

@@jamiebraswell5520 We Swiss have loads of dams. But they're monitored and maintained for real. Unlike this one.

[@death057]

So they replaced the one section of split pipe how much of that pipeline was made with that same welding technique and how much of that pipeline was replaced after this disaster? Just the one section? I wouldn't feel safe with just one section being replaced. And people wonder why there was the massive pipeline protests and the water protectors. This this exact scenario is why people don't want pipelines running through their aquifers

[@andrerogers9961]

The prices at that mall were hard to beat, attributed to low overhead.

[@GuiltyOne]

I just came across this channel and have watched 2 episodes so far and I absolutely enjoy the videos you have.... Extremely informative and alot of wow factors... Keep up the amazing videos Banijay Science!!!

[@hatto018]

Freaking Grady with the freaking cameo practical engineering baby hell yeah

[@curvebuster]

🎉 Water when contained lays Flat. Just like our oceans 😮

[@darreno9874]

Designers and architects come up with weird designs and unusual materials without a single thought about the safety of the people who use these structures, the builders and operators also share some of the responsibility.

[@matthewticer8686]

Allot of structures are built with safety in mind but years back they dident know as much as they do now, as said failed waterproofing was a factor…. They dident know that it was not adequate

[@jeannineflores3623]

Take a look at the structural failures of canal systems in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. They too thought that they were using the best designs for their time. Long story short, they failed and flooded various parts of the New Orleans area. Other failures of Katrina were various, widespread, and severe. Katrina could be documented in a miniseries. 😢😢😢

[@meadowswta8657]

i swear some Architect's designs, only have one objective...... to test the breaking point of engineers and there ability to tolerate the ridiculous joints/butts/ect without any consistency or any kinda standardised system, they are such Irrational angles ect, in my field of engineering we are expected to 1 make it strong but efficient, 2 practical but not an eye sore. why cant they try make buildings look nice but also follow the long standing methods then build of that.. example, a school for the seventh day Adventists i put together (swear the arch had some phobia of straight lines and industry stands) 4 buildings, 2 of them double story and throughout all the buildings, how many "say" structural right angles or straight edges would one expect to find (countless) yep not one some of the normal door frames were 90 plus the stair cases "the steps" 90. worst is the slight curve he put on every aspect, not even the foundation pillars followed a consistent layout, but the slight cure on every wall was by far the most torturous task, again no consistency same wall yet changes curve angle 5 times over 100m, 3 degree, 2 degree, 2 degree, 3, 4, 5 degree. hole job made worse by fact original contractor quite half way though the job an took all final plan documentation with them, never to b seen again, leaving me with multi stages of outdated plans, plus a kinda clued on bloke that we tracked down that worked on site originally who had vital knowledge needed to actually complete project

[@EricHorchuck]

33:32 "I think the cheaper and easier to use product was used by mistake" 🤯🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@cheve60]

@43:32 the pipe was isolated and repaired, wait so that section of pipe was repaired but not the rest of the underground of known pipe that suffers the same defect?

[@davidloftus2654]

Yep, and the repared pipe will now most likely be the strongest link in the chain, so just a matter of time before the same thing happens again on a different section of pipe.

[@katchitaroni6877]

Elliot Lake unfortunately did not get a new mall! They got 3 stores back ..! The loss of the mall and all its businesses still hurts the town !

[@jeremyweems4916]

Ok...!

[@John-86]

Hahahahaha

[@buckodonnghaile4309]

Unfortunately, it's not a short drive to the nearest town with a mall either. The Sault is what, 2-3 hours away?

[@ChaiLatte13]

18:55 When you pick the lowest bid, you get contractors that cut corners and engineers sign off on this stuff and it never gets looked at until some failure.

[@HingleMacCringleberry]

Pretty sad when the heart and soul of a community is a defective 80's mall.

[@brianferguson6278]

Since Elliot Lake has lost it's mall it has also lost it's Civic Center a few years later due to an overload of the roof with an Air Conditioning Unit and excessive snow loads. And now it is about to lose it's hockey rink due to old glued wood beams no longer up to the snow loads. In Ontario Canada we have a very good building code, yet in Elliot Lake things seem to fail? It is common for homes needing roof trusses to be repaired at the wood joints as the old trusses were designed to barely handle the snow loads, who would think it would snow in Northern Ontario. But this was a mining town with the mining companies building and owning everything, when the mines closed the homes were sold for pennies on the dollar, we get what we paid for in Elliot Lake.

[@TribeManagement]

Uranium deposits in the air might mess up materials differently. My buddy use to go see his aunt there . & He had a Giger reader I think it called, reads radiation, Elliott lake has a odd reading going from .8-2.3

[@paulbunion6233]

in their defence, Elliot Lake was designed as a temporary town to house workers while mining and not expected to be there as long as it was. It was a town with an expected short shelf life

[@anim8torfiddler871]

Excellent Documentary. Straight reporting, no B.S. Lots of information to ponder. Thank you.

[@mackfisher4487]

We need Pipelines as long as we use oil and gas, but: 1. How old is the pipeline? (conveniently there is no date on the Internet) 2. No map on the Internet, scrub presumably for security purposes? 3. What was the design parameters of the pipeline specifically at what pressure was the pipeline initially designed for and has the oil companies exceeded that initial design pressure?

[@poodleinadoodle3270]

In most cases, I notice economic greed rather than engineering fails...

[@HappyTinfoilCat]

1400 kilometers of doomed-to-fail pipeline, they replaced 0.01 kilometers, is that right?

[@philipoakley5498]

The lessons of Melbourne didn't actually make their way properly around the world, as exemplified by the UK's Grenfell tower block disaster. What we do [should] learn is that we continue to repeat our generalised mistakes ...

[@kevinseipel5130]

Seeing the intro of this show reminds me of another tv series i use to watch long ago called Destoryed in Seconds. its pretty interesting to hear and see them compare side by side of the intro.

[@joeson7700]

Hard to EMULATE ancient Egyptians Achievements !

[@stephenbarnes2604]

I have the same idea for Ontario. We have hundreds of gravel pits and all are on top of the escarpment. My idea is to pump water from lake Ontario into the highest pit first and have them drain from east to west to eliminate the cone of depression around them so the natural creeks that dried up run again and people who now are getting water from a truck can pump from their wells again. When the water gets to the last pit, it runs into a penstock to produce electricity on demand. A simple solution that will bring people and recreation to the area. The best part is the water is filtered and settled out and after producing electricity you get cold clean drinking water. We could also use this system for cooling the water from industry with some of the pits being warm enough to swim in in the depths of winter. I see nothing but benefit and as permanent solution to several problems. we could even heat some streets and intersections in winter and heat homes.

[@OldieBugger]

And how many thousands of miles of old fragile oilpipe is still used in US?

[@AgentCraftwork]

Blah blah blah "US bad" blah blah blah "capitalism evil" but you aren't saying shit about Chinese industry being the cause behind 95% of the pollution in the atmosphere

[@AgentCraftwork]

Blah blah blah "US bad" blah blah blah "capitalism evil" but you don't seem to care about C.H.I.N.A. being the cause behind 95% of the pollution in the atmosphere (I have already made this comment 3 times and each time it was deleted in less than 30 seconds, #censorship)

[@Izanami95]

The Alaska pipeline which started sending oil through it around 1977 had a projected lifespan of 25 years is still pumping oil across Alaska. I have no idea how many aging pipes are buried underground and sadly most will remain in operation until they fail.

[@htopherollem649]

don't forget about natural gas pipelines either. though less polluting when ruptured , they result in massive fires instead

[@garygraham4679]

@@Izanami95 Not to worry. As a kid my first job was at phoenix steel where one of the oldest steel mills in America was saved by a massive long term order for seamless pipe for a new pipeline in Alaska. We got the contract because there were so few antique steel mills left that made seamless extruded pipe that large- most the new stuff was the "new fangled" bend and weld cheapy stuff that failed in Arkansaw. Since the Alaska pipeline was a HUGE fight with conservationists the only way it got approved was EVERYTHING had to have a proven track record of 50 years in operation. Seamless extrusion pipe made from ingots and a mandrel goes back to the dawn of steel making- and was costing 3Xs the "new improved" stuff. I here the plant went broke a year after that contract was fulfilled. Google Earth shows a big mall and park in Phoenixville where the old pipe mill had stood since 1830s when it was just Phoenix Iron Works.

[@orchidtoyo]

It's Grady!!!! If you don't watch Practical Engineering, you should. I love his channel.

[@natehill8069]

19:00 so basically this overflowed because nobody bent that little black float arm in the toilet when the wall settled to make it stop running

[@natashajenkins-xh2xd]

The same building fire disaster occured in uk, known as the Grenfell Tower disaster. A fridge blew up and caught fire on the 10th floor, only since the building was built, some bright spark decided to clad the building with highly flammable insulating panels, and the builder had cut corners, To make worse they had spaced the cladding 3cm away, creating a 'chimney' which drew the flames into a roaring jet. The entire building went up like a bonfire in minutes, dozens of people killed.

[@LiLsCo0tZ]

informative.. thx for sharing

[@alancornwall5589]

I got excited to see Grady from Practical Engineering

[@shirleybalinski4535]

My local town has a pump storage resevoir. It sets on bluffs above Lake Michigan & is operated by Michigan's 2 largest energy providers. It is an 800 acre resevoir. Built in the late 1960's, so far no problems.

[@daveevans5291]

How many older malls across America and Canada are in the same rotting condition?

[@tymz-r-achangin]

29:34 Why wont they explain how they know it was a cigarette butt? Countless times have watched documentaries and they make such claims of knowing the cause of the fire but yet they wont say how they knew it.

[@TheRoidemortetfleur]

so much space the decision to save space with cars parking on top is odd

[@mrdan2898]

My thoughts exactly!

[@takumi2023]

maybe they only had enough money to purchase land for the shopping mall but not for the parking lot. i would have put it underneath the shopping mall but hey i didn't design it.

[@jamiebraswell5520]

​​@@takumi2023agreed. A rooftop parking lot full of concrete slabs is really a dumb idea. Even dumber, though, is watching it leak for three decades and assuming that it would all be okay!

[@AD-hq2uz]

Love seeing Grady!!!

[@kristensorensen2219]

I remember the London high rise fire; but not this one!!🤔 Siding lined with flamable plastic wow!! Cigarettes belong in a real ash tray not a plastic yogert container on a flamable table. How great of building codes and inspectors!!

[@Foersom_]

23:15 Nice reflextion, makes it look like the bridge has a Renault logo as middle support.

[@lindawalker8949]

There was 30 years of warning in Elliot Lake.

[@jamiebray8532]

To the firefighters in Melbourne i gotta give yall a big 'atta boy.

[@Fruitcupper]

Would painting tar over the 9x2 slabs then laying concrete have helped? Neighbourhood oil well, go get em boys!

[@mark77193]

It would have helped for a while. It needed a full waterproof membrane (either torch on or Volclay system) over the slabs, then another layer of concrete.

[@rcstl8815]

23:23 Maxwell Smart, "Missed it by just this much." I hope the truck driver survived and took up speeding for a hobby!.

[@johnnynephrite6147]

why in the hell did they build a lake above ground to begin with? Oh, and then after a catastrophic failure, they rebuilt it AGAIN. Brilliant in Missouri are they.

[@StevenCassels]

And it’s leaking through the new structure 🤔

[@johnnynephrite6147]

@@StevenCassels of course it is. think of the money the contractors made building that above ground swimming pool vs a regular inground type. $$$$$$

[@mtsbr78]

Olhando por esta perpectiva, parece com um coração.

[@fatalberti]

any rooftop area drains/inlets to collect runoff? was the panel slab approach cheaper than a seamless pour in place to minimize joints?

[@ElizabethMayo-sf4wg]

I love showtime this.

[@randyrobertson4686]

It’s amazing that engineers found a cost effective way to release torrents of water in order to turn the turbines and create electricity to power thousands and thousands of homes and businesses and then using the same water that generates the power to be profitable can actually be stored and pumped back up into the same reservoir that in turn will eventually be released again to spin the turbines to create more electricity. This is mind blowing to someone like myself who has no engineering knowledge. I would be more inclined to think that this would be counter intuitive and defy some of Newtons basic principles. There has to be some sort of loss here somewhere to some capacity but I suppose it’s superlative and inconsequential for me to argue about. What do I know about hydrology and engineering

[@Bugdriver49]

Your feelings about losing energy is correct...Not even close to breaking even...energy wise. But the concept does work on a financial level. That's all made possible because of how our electric grid system works. Many may think of our grid like it's a giant battery....but it's not. Power is supplied to the grid by hundreds of power stations as that power is used. The supply matches the demand. Come evening when A/C units shut down and folks sleep, the demand drops.... you cannot feed power to the grid if no one is using that power. One place that unused power goes to pump water up into reservoirs on top of mountains ...I always called them "water batteries." Just an early solution to the main problem we are still facing....storage of excess power. In addition of "water batteries" there are now huge batteries made of thousands if tiny batteries by Telsa. Lots of experimental work on different types of batteries, my favorite is a Liquid metal battery by Ambri.

[@trashPanda416]

Would you guys do build above ground pool???

[@anim8torfiddler871]

I can't help noticing that the Graphic illustration shown at 14:48 of the Elliot "Lake" Containment walls are depicted with a much shallower SLOPE and presumably sturdier structure than is seen clearly in the ACTUAL Walls in the aerial film shown at 13:25. Most hydroelectric Dams I've read about are designed with the BASE thickness the same as or even greater than the Height of the Dam.

[@LordMarcus]

That man is too excited about a dam failure.

[@rikkicampos8873]

8:29 Foreign steel thickness is made by pressing layers of thin metal sheets together . American steel was made as it moved down a conveyor system, this thick sheet layer of hot steel was being compressed at certain stages in the line, too a lesser thickness and cut when the required amount of sheets was met.

[@chriscross7494]

They said there was no warning however those cracks were the sign everyone chose to overlook.

[@d.l.d.l.8140]

There are only so many cladding manufacturers. How in the Hell does cladding like this get an occupancy permit? As a former tradesman, I believe a decision was made that prioritized profit over safety. It’s distressingly common.

[@danieldouglas6017]

Lake Conway is in the process of being drained to clear it out and make it deeper. I think it's a project planned to take four years? I know some local residents who fish a lot aren't happy about it

[@JosephBoxmeyer]

Did that Melbourne fire involve a panneling similar to the fire in London?

[@2dronetek2]

I'm 14 seconds in, with the sound off, and after seeing the arial shot of the 'above-ground' lake it's obvious what the problem is.

[@parrotraiser6541]

Anywhere there's concentration of energy, (nuclear, kinetic, gravitational or other), there's a potential explosion or other disaster.

[@jamiebraswell5520]

I can't understand the idea of a rooftop parking lot. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to have the mall built above the parking lot? Also, how could they just ignore the leaking for thirty years? Obviously something was wrong, but they just kept on assuming it would go away and that the leaks were not causing any trouble? One would think that mold would be a problem too, but they ignored it for thirty years???😵‍💫🙄 The dam on top of the mountain...maybe I am just paranoid, but I would not live nor recreate beliw a dam. I don't care how much assurance there is from those who built it or from the local government/leadership, there are countless examples of shortcuts and design flaws that have led to catastrophic failure in the past. I don't want to be downstream of a dam anymore than I want to live on the slope of a volcano!!!😐😶

[@b.jamindamour2008]

So they replaced the ruptured section of the Pegasus Pipeline... What about the rest of the pipeline constructed using the same technology, did they even use an inspector drone to check it? Oi, I'd say there's another catastrophe waiting to happen elsewhere on the line and there's little incentive to do anything about it. A disruption of that oil flow might increase gas prices by 5 or 10 cents for a few months, and that's so unpopular no person in a position of power will push for it. I can't even blame the rich for this one because the stocks of those oil companies are held by so many average people in 401k and other accounts. There's just too much pressure for number go up from all sides to ever deal with many of these issues and that's a huge problem. Some days I just hope it all burns down.

[@eliasshedd]

Bill Hader from Superbad and SNL makes an outstanding performance as a physicist with a ridiculous Overstated English accent. Although straining Credibility That A character could ever exist In real life Bill imagines a character Possible only in his mind and in late night cartoons. This performance as a physicist will have you rolling on the floor.

[@procatprocat9647]

A system should never get to 'High High'. The system should stop at 'High'. They missed explaining what had gone wrong here.

[@WilliamLee-bv4tv]

Yooo they got my dude Grady in here

[@ludicrous7044]

They didn't say WHY the oil leak was not detected sooner with less damage!!😞

[@DJgregBrown]

the cladding issue is one of the world, we never listened until grenfell tower, and many other countries are having their own fatal awakening still, special when update old building that have stay put firewall with deadly skins. 40 years ago Grenfall would not of spread to kill the many it did. The inner stair way never burned but was useless as smoke blocked it and the fire spread around the building in a way it couldn't before making the fire fighters make the mistake of saying stay put rather than get out. All because they wanted poor to move or improve and they made the place look nice for the local rich who saw the building as a eye saw, each and every rich local was responsible for the death there. All they wanted was high property values, not the place is sign by the death of the tower and the tower will forever be a eye saw lowering the value righteous of a murder site.

[@rcstl8815]

Engineers: The water averages three feet deep. Next day engineer drowns walking through the water. It is hard to believe that regular surveys were not done on the walls. This would have shown that over time, things settle whether we like it or not.

[@puzzled4163]

From the beginning even before the mall opened they said water was leaking in. Then they said the roof collapsed with no warning. I guess water leaking in wasn't warning enough that there was a problem.

[@ubroc]

"The ruptured section of the pipeline was isolated and repaired" and the other 1800 miles of the same pipeline was left in place. What could possibly go wrong? "At the time you woudn't consider that risky in any sense of the word" Says Keystone oil pipeline executives demanding that they put a pipeline through your commmunity and across your river.

[@olgastepanov8479]

5:52 is no doubt a big trategy, but IMHO worst mall disaster (that I'm aware of) happened in Kemerovo city, Winter Cherry mall. All started from small fire in kids playground which grew exponentialy since foam rubber caught fire. In the end 60 fatalities of which 37 we're children.

[@beringstraitrailway]

Heart shaped lake!

[@lorlash876]

I grew up in Elliot Lake took my driver test on the roof of the mall and spent thousands of hours in the Arcade there. The roof leaked since day 1

[@fatalberti]

so the reservoir is drawn down and loaded again over a day or so? sounds like rapid drawdown and reloading. sounds scary

[@CajunShrek]

39:58 was jed from Beverly hills trying to strike some Texas tea,?