Have any other disasters you'd like me to cover? Let me know!! This weeks outro Song: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b66XhJuir7nZho0.html

Cases like these, where the workers are basically shouting for higher ups to shut it down and fix mistakes, but get ignored, are sooo frustrating and sad

The fact that these things consistently happen with basically a slap on the wrist is so disgusting. People complained, rich people shrugged, poor people die and the cycle continues.

Between the sinkholes and condos, life insurance premiums have got to be astronomical in Florida.

"Jeez, look at all the cracks in the concrete!" "Don't worry, it will go away when we keep adding floors."

My parents are trying to move out of their condo in Florida. They found out that the HOA board has been incredibly inept at maintaining the buildings over the years and now the HOA fees are skyrocketing to pay for all the repairs that must be done immediately. My parents are mad about that jump in fees but I'm more concerned about the fact that the roof was supposed to be replaced several years ago.

i'm not even an engineer or involved in construction, but when i heard the pooling water and cracks in the concrete, i was like "uh oh, that's not good!!!". also, love the new scale.

My friends and I were heading to the beach and Ron Jon's surf shop and stopped at a traffic light near the condo. We saw this happen while were stopped. It was horrifying to watch.

I'm glad we've learned from disasters like this, and Florida hasn't seen a condo collapse since... oh. :(

“For what seems to be a state tradition” had me laughing violently

There was an accident similar to this in Gwangju, South Korea back in January 2022. The high-rise was rushed, it had sub-standard concrete and had not enough time and structural support it needed to harden. It happened almost exactly the same way as the accident of this video, about 30 stories higher up in the air. The only difference is, that the company responsible didn't get bankrupt, let alone suffer severe legal consequences. It somehow manages to be a worse dumpster fire than the same accident 4 decades ago.

Love the new Balls Rating. May I submit that you also add one of your foreman caricatures with increasingly distressed body language for each level of severity, such as 1. shrugging with hands out to sides, palms up, 2. side view of hiding bowed head behind clipboard in shame, 3. holding onto hardhat with both hands, knees bent braced to run, 4. running with hardhat and clipboard flying off behind, and 5. standing with skull for a face and hardhat on fire.

Hey John, though I've only been a South Floridian since 1991, after the Surfside collapse last year, it became clear how most of these condos were cheaply made since the 70s because of kickbacks, mafia involvement, etc. It seems like a couple of times a month since Surfside, we get news alerts about condo buildings in the area getting emergency evacuations of its tenants due to the building structures determined to be unsafe by engineers while the building is being reassessed by the state...and most of these evaluations are the 50-year reassessment type. If the building needs to have a 50-year reassessment these days, it's time to shut things down, help tenants find alternate (and newer) places to live at and demolish the building, because any building made from the 70s weren't built the same as newer buildings are built these days with updated safety measures and rules in place..

Ya that engineer didnt understand what was going on, you cant just add more steel in later placements without addessing the current issue. That would already imply negligence in your sealed design.

Literally EVERY time I see or hear the phrase “Balls, or Oh Balls” on this channel I laugh out loud uncontrollably. Especially when it’s a dialogue bubble and the person depicted is staring a major disaster in the face and ultimately says “oh balls” in reaction. Too funny, so I love the “Balls” scale.

Just wanted to compliment the level of detail presented in the video as you went along through the video. I work with engineering concrete and the description of the design, the visual defects that formed, and the construction methods really helped the storytelling for me. Great job including without getting into the weeds. As an aside I’m kind of shocked the engineer, when brought in to look at what was unfolding, didn’t start screaming ‘shut it down!’ The cracking and deflection described in the slabs was alarming and was a huge red flag that things were fundamentally wrong with either the design or materials. And considering the potential liability that licensed engineers hold… but I guess if that happened it wouldn’t be the subject of your video today.

Concrete is fickle stuff, so easy to make mistakes and even easier to cut corners. When you understand how important it is to get it right, you are nothing short of evil for not doing so. I have seen new buildings, that sold off the plans, have exposed reinforcing clearly visible in the carpark, which of course is the sub structure holding everything else up. In Sydney, Australia where I live, there is a building called the Opal Tower that was evacuated on Christmas day, as were many other nearby buildings, due to fear of a collapse. It didn't but might make a good story on this line of poor quality construction.

This makes me worry for a few of my friends who live in Florida... It is very sad when the execs ignore the workers' warnings that the shit is about to hit the fan, and they just stick their heads in the sand so the problem can kick them in the ass once they can't get their head out of the ground. Side note: I like how you always used "Balls" as an expression that things went wrong, like instead of "Oh shit" or "oh crap" or "FUCK!" they just say "Balls", that new disaster scale being called the Balls scale is really fitting.

I worked construction in Florida (Miami Beach) in the early 80's when this happened. I was hired with absolutely no concrete experience as a laborer, but my main job was translating English to Spanish for the other workers most of whom couldn't get to the bathroom if they had to do it in English. No surprise to me that buildings are so shoddy. No doubt the Traffficante family had something to do with it as well.

I remember this collapse. The design was weak, the construction standards and materials used were poor, and still they would have been okay if they had not removed all the supporting poles on the lower floors and then poured the roof. After this event contractors left supporting poles in place until the entire building was completed.

The new scale is great, looking forward to finding out which disaster will be the first 'oh balls' - even though these things are horrible, it's great to learn about them, and sometimes you just gotta laugh the pain away.

That moment when you can’t sleep and you’re here within the first few minutes of uploading… Been to Cocoa Beach a few times as a kid but never knew or heard anything about this, today I learned!

Six miles to the west, on Merritt Island, there was an additional death directly related to the Harbor Cay collapse: A crane responding to the emergency was following a police escort eastbound on State Road #520. At the intersection of State Road #3, an elderly woman waited for the State Patrol vehicle to clear the intersection, but pulled in front of the crane. The crane operator tried to avoid a collision, but ended up rolling onto the driver's side on top of the car, killing the woman. The crane operator received minor injuries.

I shouldn't be surprised it was allowed to pass with the thinner floors, but ... Statutory lesson in listening and paying attention to your workers and foreman, not just giving lip service. Kudos to the other workers who brought the heavy equipment to help with the rescue efforts.

I'm sitting here thinking about being a construction worker on that job in the days before the collapse and asking myself if I'd have had the smarts and self-preservation to walk away. I hope so.

Having grown up in the town next to Cocoa, I can say for sure that "nothing had failed so far" is how everything is done, at least in Central Florida x'D

Thank you John. These stories of utter negligence make my skin crawl and my blood boil!

Thank you John. I didn’t realise that the ACI were such an aggressive agency. You’d assumed that they were mild mannered engineers but apparently they are extremely vociferous! 😀

I like your new scale of rating the disasters. Much more simplified. Doesn't take a rocket scientist degree to realize this video is a number 4 (outright negligence) appreciate you going thru all the research to make this video. Stay warm and dry if you can in your part of the UK.

I love the new rating scale! I also really enjoy the weather updates😂 please never stop doing them.

I was trained and worked in heavy civil engineering in the UK. In that period there were different forms ofproject contract . But most were of the Architectural format, Where a consultant structural engineer is hired to monitor and amend the planned format of the building. In a"cast on site" RC structure like this. The structural plan would have required local planning approval of the RC structural design drawings before construction even starts. As the structure progresses the local planning office would inspect major elements before they were cast. (The structural consultant should always do this anyway) . In short this project should never have got passed the drawings before it was amended. The concrete mix is certified And Checked by regular testing of concrete blocks cast AT THE TIME! These cubes are then crushed in a press to see if the 7 day and 21 day strength performs as specified. In the above project, just allowing 7 days between floors seems insufficient, even if they staggered the process. Also the foundations problems associated with conditions in Florida can be yet another nasty situation. In the UK we often see columns and beams cast on site, with precast floor elements produced-off site and lowered into place by a crane. Then bonded into the structure with reinforcement and grouting. Another form very common in America is a steel frame (clad in concrete) with Pre cast concrete floors. In the project you describe - with cracking seen on the underside of beams and floors at least by the 2nd floor. All work would have been stopped (by the structural consultant, the architect or just the planning officer) until the source of the problem was corrected. It should NEVER have reached the 3rd floor, let alone the roof! I would strongly expect that local corruption played a major part in this failure. Because so many people (with the clear responsibility to stop it) simply didn't say ANYTHING, or request concrete testing result before the work proceeded. Big envelopes full of dirty cash probably changed hands on this job. I did work for a structural consultant in Reinforced Concrete. They would have been horrified at the drawings stage. We have codes of practice and regular materials testing to prevint this kind of "BUILT IN" DISASTER!

I recently moved to Florida its exciting to see an episode about something in my home state although it is unfortunately tragic.

This week my schedule has been very unusual, and until you popped up I'm drinking my coffee, scrolling, and thinking it's Friday, lol. Thanks for reminding me it's Saturday, and thank you for your content. Hope the sun pops out soon.

Lol your new disaster scale had me cracking up

"To what seems to be a state tradition" Savage😂😂

I've lived in Florida my whole life and I've stayed in quite a few condos over on the gulf side(west) and every time, except once, they always looked like they were built very well and in great shape. That one time though was pretty bad, it had a major crack right when you walked in at the bottom of the floor all the way up the wall to the roof. There were a couple more in the living room that did the same, from the bottom baseboard all the way up to the roof. Just the whole foundation was pretty sketchy

This showed up in a related video suggestion after watching a video on "The Expanse" no more than 6 minutes after you posted it. I would say you have some good reach.

Yes this is what happens often times when corners are cut and the government and other organizations look the other way. It's all about the money and human lives are secondary at best.

It's great to see a rating scale back for the disasters. The videos had been feeling slightly incomplete without one.

This is why I ignore my coworkers and even supervisors when they claim I am pestering them when I report damaged equipment or questionable infrastructure at my job. They claim "Oh it's been like that since [insert months, years, etc here] and nothing has happened yet!" I reply: "It's the yet the worries me. I don't want it to happen at all. And there is a fine line between 'Its fine' and "Oh shit'."

Thank you for bringing this outright negligence to my attention and many others attention. Found the information that you provided very interesting. May I suggest that you take a look at other buildings throughout the state of Florida such as Daytona Beach condos like the Hawaiian Inn and the Holiday Inn and a 20 story condominium building all within the same area. That were highly affected by Coastal erosion due to Hurricane Ian and Dorian. You can see very similar construction to this building that was shown in this negligence episode. Only there it's even worse some of the buildings are actually supported by what appear to be telephone pole like support beams that are not really set in any order and are literally rotting away. Some of the buildings you can even see slanting and the erosion continues to eat at the base of the buildings now that many of the buildings have already lost their seawalls being knocked down by Coastal surge tide effect some of the walls that constructed the sea walls are not even more than 4 in thick. The awful concrete design along with the coastal erosion destroyed the buildings sea walls that were also poorly constructed. Work has already been done to try to save the buildings but I would love for you or a show like yours too review their structural integrity and show the blatant defects not only from the damage suffered from the hurricane title surge but from the way many of the buildings were built to begin with. Concrete laid so thin and improperly that you can actually see the rebar popping through literally rusting a corroding right through the concrete. Cracks that resemble a severely cracked broken egg. Rickety Sharing and shearing the weight of the upper floors. One of the buildings the buildings up to 22 floors. Other buildings are 10 stories to five stories. No structural i-beams in many of the buildings no structural headers it almost all the buildings very poor structural integrity concrete. As if the concrete was mixed with beach sand literally flaking away. Again like a brittle broken cracked egg. I would love to see your take on all of it. Daytona is also famous for balconies literally collapsing even without storms. And is notorious for horrible building standards.

At this point, I'm surprised Florida itself hasn't collapsed.

*three months later* The other other other OTHER Florida condo collapse.

Things are always built by the lowest bidder. My father was one of the designers of the US military's HUMVEE. He had a lot of practical complaints about the designs survivability and practicality, but nobody listened. Keep in mind, that this way during its original creation as a replacement for the Jeep... Not a combat vehicle but a behind the lines support vehicle. Being a former toolmaker with an engineering background, I've seen so much shady behavior in industry that I personally view most industrial structures as death traps. The people that build these things only care about profit, safety is a myth at best to them.

Small correction. The bar chairs DO make sure that the rebar is in the right location but the consequence of it being in the wrong location is NOT really extra bending but more a dramatic loss of strength or durability. It also sounds like the bars ended up all bunched up which would mean that the liquid concrete couldn't get into all of the gaps around the rebar. Reinforced concrete is designed so that the steel and concrete work together to support the load and if there are air gaps around the concrete this can dramatically reduce the strength.

Just realized you are closing in on a million! High quality content will result in much subscribing.

Omgggg crazy!! My family is from Cocoa Beach!! My mom grew up there and my gramma lived there for decades lolol so cool to hear my neighborhood being talked about

Anyone think the 'Balls Rating' system will last?

Alright no sleep for snother 30 minutes

Absolutely love the new rating scale.

I worked for Univel in Cocoa Beach in the early 80s. It was a company known to take shortcuts.

Between stories like this and Surfside, I would never live in a Florida multi-level condominium.

Cute as the "Balls Scale" is I think a variation of the IAEA Nuclear incident scale (ie 1-7, how far outside the local area do effects spread) would be better for these presentations. Terrible as this collapse is it didn't really have much national or international affect, while the crash of the BOAC Comets changed air travel going forward (letting US companies surpass the brits in jet travel, and introducing new understanding of metal fatigue/window design).

Your videos are always such a welcome addition to my day, love them all. Keep up the great work!

Just in time, Thank you again John!

I think the new disaster scale is great! The most terrifying imo is 'another day at the office'

Engineer here - just know that understanding of construction quality has improved a thousand fold since the 80s. Inspections by a third-party and government engineers are mandatory at every stage of construction. No longer are self-approved inspections acceptable for permits to continue with construction. The irony is - it happens to be this type of disaster that creates more safe construction inspection and procedures. (EDIT: The problem is that there are construction developers with deep pockets who lobby to allow older buildings to be grandfathered in - meaning that for many portions of safety, the new standards are ignored and the original plans are allowed to stay as built - grandfathered-in projects are the ones you hear about in disasters such as this in modern times)

Great video as always, thank you!

Perfect time to get off work! Love your content!

After watching all the @practicalengineering and related videos about how and why Surfside collapsed, this is almost tragically obvious.

Glad to see the scale back, even if it's different! Can't wait to here other stories to fit on the scale, even if I wish the events didn't happen.

I posted that first comment before the end of video. I am all for that balls scale. Fits in with the plainly difficult videos quite well.

For what its worth, the new scale gets a Florida Woman seal of approval, John. It's evocative of how Floridians view hurricane ratings. 1-2, eh whatever. 3, maybe we should buy more than beer. 4-5 oh we're probably screwed.

John, you should check out the L'Ambiance Plaza collapse in Bridgeport CT in the 1980's. Cause was a faulty "amazing" new building method called "lift slab construction." At least a 3, maybe a 4 on your new scale.

Thank you for your excellent and abundant content!

I love your videos. Thank you for all the hard work you put in for this Channel

"Leave the problems in place on the lower floors, and we'll *try* to do it better as we continue!"

If you ever get to any more Australian construction examples I’d recommend for the adaption of 1. She’ll be alright 2. Oh for ****s sake. 3.Oh! That One! 4. Get A Lawyer 5. Harold Holt. For those that that don’t know, Harold Holt was a PM who got himself drowned/eaten by shark/ kidnapped by submarine after swimming.

Love the new disaster scale!

Love the new BALLS scale! Keep the great work coming!

Did they not require core samples in the 80’s damn.. Great video as always!!

It's surreal to hear you talk about the places I live and work around.

Well done and the new ratings are spot on. Thanks as always.

Extremely well done, much appreciated. Have you done anything on the history of the Wheeling suspension bridge?

Well, if you're going to do Floridian condo collapses, then you have to do the Surfside condo collapse that happened last year!

Another building in Miami Beach 20 blocks from the Champlain Towers was recently evacuated because of noticeable cracks and flooding.

plainly difficult thank you for the content. i love subject matter like this. anything and everything investigative. especially in regards to disasters that have occurred.

Another excellent episode Sir, dumpster fire and all!!!🙏😢⚖️🤔😵‍💫

people really can and will cut any corners just to save money. regardless of the potential collateral

Congrats, Florida! Achievement unlocked.

a condo collapse in florida? it would never happen today!

I say florida has 2 traditional disasters-sinkholes and collapses. florida is on top of an aquifer which they also use for their water needs.

I'm glad that during my highly intermittent 'career' on the buildings I never worked on any project where concrete was a major structural component. The corner-cutting, cock-ups and corruption I've seen would keep me awake at night. My conscience can live with a few sub-standard garage floors, cracked paths and subsiding roads 😇

Great video once again :)

If I remember correctly didn't this building company or engineer previously have a building they made collapse because they didn't follow the state requirements? I might be wrong but I thought I heard that somewhere...

I often think of Florida as a giant sandbar, waiting for the right storm to come wash it away. Yes, I've lived in Florida.

I immediately thought “oh this happened before and it wasn’t Miami?” And then I was like “omg it’s Cocoa Beach where we went on that cruise one time.” I’m getting afraid to stay in any condo in Florida.

Love the new Balls rating ! Very fitting. The graphics are getting more gory, I like it a lot !

Do the Hard Rock hotel collapse in New Orleans of 2019

Wont be the last time a condo collapses in florida. Seems to be a thing in florida.

I like the new balls scale! It seems much more relatable, and meaningful. I grew up in Florida, and I still don't understand why they keep trying to make tall building stand on sand.

Apparently. they're expecting the Port Royale building to fall down soon as well, as it developed a crack through the entirety of one of its basement support beams, leading it to be evacuated a couple of weeks ago. :/

Florida Man Land!

Does it sound louder in the left ear for anybody else?

This is so sad. Many innocent people died here. They deserve to be remembered. Thank you for producing this video. ❤️

Well, the conclusion wasn't what I was expecting, but, still absolutely NOT surprising. When I heard you say, "8 inch floors, but State Law called for 11 inches," what I was really expecting was, "So they just poured the floor slabs 3 inches thicker." Paying no attention to the additional load on the uprights. I've seen this.

If Florida isn't the definition of a collapse then idk what is

Average Floridian architecture lel

Thanks for the new video!!!

Dude I've lived in Brevard County for most of my life. In Cape Canaveral , Melbourne area and have never heard of this accident. I work in construction too. It's crazy how things get kept out of main stream minds.