►Thanks for watching, check out me other bits! ►My new Album: madebyjohn.bandcamp.com/album/now-thats-the-glades-94 ►Outro Song: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hJakz6yDiNS5gMo.htmlsi=2_i6bKZUj3bjixzw ►Instagram: instagram.com/plainly.john/ ►Patreon: www.patreon.com/Plainlydifficult ►Merch: plainly-difficult.creator-spring.com ►Twitter:twitter.com/Plainly_D

@myrecreationalchannel7181

2 ай бұрын

Why only a 3 rather than a 4 given that people were killed?

@magicpyroninja

2 ай бұрын

What exactly would you consider Fair compensation for the loss of loved ones because I don't think there's anything that could possibly compensate that

@justsayen2024

2 ай бұрын

John SO. CAL has had multiple landslides with home that have collapsed down steep hillsides. In 2018 Dec 20 in Montecito Santa Barbara County there was a case of gigantic mud slide and Boulders coming down the hillside rolling through homes after torrential rains in Southern California. Warnings ignored mistakes were made. Definitely a Plainly difficult story.

@AllGoodOutside

2 ай бұрын

Isn't bingo a game? I can't think of one single disaster where people were killed that could be considered a game.

@AllGoodOutside

2 ай бұрын

​@@magicpyroninjadepends on the loved one or rather the unloved one.

"yep its still wet" I always love those little speech bubbles

@thing_under_the_stairs

2 ай бұрын

"Balls!"

@angelmeier4382

2 ай бұрын

@@thing_under_the_stairsBALLS

@riinak7212

2 ай бұрын

Me too! Even better when they're in another language and I take the time to translate them. For some reasons, those hit the funny bone the hardest. lol

@mikeh892

2 ай бұрын

"This ain't good."

@Lvvcassss

2 ай бұрын

@@thing_under_the_stairs anybody knows what's the "Balls" font?

Bridge design and maintenance can be quite Plainly Difficult

@Vicus_of_Utrecht

2 ай бұрын

Lol, go home

It's almost as if bridges needed some kind of periodic inspection and maintenance.

@janetphillips2875

2 ай бұрын

Like the I-40 Bridge over the MS River, Memphis Tn. Private photos from riverboats showed a crack starting as far back as 2016. It was shut down in 2021. No inspections were being done!!! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Bridge#:~:text=The%20Hernando%20de%20Soto%20Bridge,through%20arch%2C%20with%20bedstead%20endposts.

@BrilliantDesignOnline

2 ай бұрын

🙂

@DaveJOHAZ

2 ай бұрын

Just build it... and forget it! to paraphrase some infomercial...

@CrazyBear65

2 ай бұрын

Something short of reconstruction but more than peanutbutter and bandaids...

@KenFullman

2 ай бұрын

"if you build it they will come". Nobody said anything about maintenance.

Sitting on a Saturday morning with my coffee, hitting refresh and knowing the new Plainly Difficult will arrive at any second. ☕

@Kdschaak

2 ай бұрын

Oh yea! Me too. I made myself a raspberry white chocolate mocha. I's the ritual on my day off. Have a little wake and bake, some good coffee, and listen to Johns lovely singsong voice as he describes the death and chaos. 😃 And the weather report. I don't know why I am so damn concerned about the weather on the other side of the world, but I always stay to see what kind of day John is having, Cheers! 🤙

@thing_under_the_stairs

2 ай бұрын

@@Kdschaak That sounds like delicious coffee! I've got cardamom spiced tea today, with honey and steamed milk. And yes, I love the weekly weather report too. Always nice to know what it's like in his corner of London!

@angelmeier4382

2 ай бұрын

I'm also drinking my coffee but it's evening when I'm watching this. Some would say that one shouldn't drink coffee at evening but hey, I do what I want!

@erikaswanson7072

2 ай бұрын

I love Saturdays and Plainly Difficult! Unfortunately today I had to work, so PD and the London weather report had to wait until after my shift.

@Vicus_of_Utrecht

2 ай бұрын

Test

Here for the weekly southern London weather report

@thing_under_the_stairs

2 ай бұрын

It's chilly and windy in Toronto today. Anyone else got weather to share?

@omegadubois6619

2 ай бұрын

Sunny and 66° in southwest Missouri

@cris_261

2 ай бұрын

Sunny and 65° in Northern Utah.

@ImOnAJourney

2 ай бұрын

😂😂😂😂

@justsayen2024

2 ай бұрын

Another rainy weekend in So.Cal I never thought John and I would have the same weather pattern😄

I grew up in Schoharie and still have family living there. I was born the same year but my dad was a truck driver at the time. Hes visiting me right now and I showed him this video and he said he remembers this very clearly because he was on the bridge the same night it collapsed (a couple of hours before).

I had some people I know trying to figure out how a ship runs into a bridge and a bridge could fall after Baltimore, and thanks to your videos I was able to give a quick list of possibilities (really minimally stated) for both ship and bridge, and stop a bunch of people from jumping into conspiracy as their first thought (rather than say the entire bingo card plus hydrology and geology and engineering and simple human error). So thank you for helping me be able to give people an idea of why the investigation will take so long, and possible things they will find based on other disasters. It gave them something productive to actually focus on: contacting their representatives to push for checking on other bridges for things like a lack of protection from boat collisions or other infrastructure issues that have been ignored. It also gave them a better understanding of how and why disasters happen and what to look for before and after, plus a source to learn more. As someone with very bad anxiety, knowledge is power, and it enables me to assess actual risk vs the invented risk in my brain. So, thank you!

@thomaskositzki9424

2 ай бұрын

You can dig on this channel a little and you find two (IIRC) other ship-bridge-collisions since the 1970s in the USA. They went down just like this one. This is no new issue.

@kerravonsen2810

2 ай бұрын

Go you!

@CrazyBear65

2 ай бұрын

Why weren't there tugs guiding the big boat? Ain't that SOP? Maybe not.

@jandl1jph766

2 ай бұрын

​@@CrazyBear65The issue with tugs is that they cannot be connected to a much larger vessel operating under its own power, because that can very easily capsize them. So no, SOP is to have a pilot on board and run the ship's main engine slowly to navigate through the harbor, because that's much quicker and, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, plenty safe enough. Tugs may be kept around as an escort in narrow channels, but it's not uncommon to dismiss them when no longer needed, since they are expensive. A ship suffering a complete loss of power just before passing under a bridge that's not sufficiently hardened against collisions is an extremely unlikely event - though the law of big numbers applies, as it always does.

In the mid-1930s a railway bridge in the Esk valley between Grosmont and Sleights was wash away after heavy rain. A few weeks after the bridge had been reopened it was washed away again and had to be rebuilt. That bridge still stands. No one was killed or injured in either collapse.

@KRJayster

2 ай бұрын

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up!"

@chellesama8256

2 ай бұрын

Wow! That's fascinating!

@neiloflongbeck5705

2 ай бұрын

@@chellesama8256 the second bridge is still in use.

This disaster happened a few miles from my Village of Fonda. The Thruway authority directed all their traffic through our little settlement. A few days later our bridge over the Mohawk River came loose from it's footing and became very dangerous. Our bridge was closed and we were not even allowed to walk over it until it was torn down and replaced. I believe the final body was not found for a very long time, the person had been swept into the Mohawk river down by Albany.

Another reason not to underestimate water

I grew up 20 miles from Schoharie and never heard of this!

@xboxchadrein8044

Ай бұрын

I'm with you there. Not as old but I'm about 10 minutes away from it.

I live in this area but only fir the past 20 yrs. This is still heavy on the minds of most locals especially since so many bridges are in disrepair

Thanks for covering older stuff, that's actually undergone a full investigation; it's refreshing hearing things that aren't speculation, even if it's for tragic events.

@TheAechBomb

2 ай бұрын

that's why I love this channel; it covers the event, the facts around it, and often even the theories people had at the time, even when they were wrong. it gives insight into what we need to do better in future.

@mjustjeanette7026

2 ай бұрын

And it's a sad reminder that humans don't always learn their lessons well. After all, profit now, disaster, later when someone else will have to pay.

@DustyGamma

2 ай бұрын

@@TheAechBomb Exactly, all those insights are things that people are missing today. ...Also, when's my toast going to be done?

@TheAechBomb

2 ай бұрын

@@DustyGamma no toast for u uwu

Been over this bridge many times along the thruway, and the replacement span. It floods so strongly when it floods because the watershed is long, and steep sided, acting as a funnel, resulting in fast and furious water. The tragedy made the news, obviously, and was quite extensively covered.

The Key Bridge disaster stunned the whole city. I live about an hour away and work within a few miles of the bridge site. The loss of life was terrible and in addition, many people's livelihoods have been seriously affected as well. Hopefully once the investigation is complete, you can make a video on that as well.

@ferretyluv

2 ай бұрын

It’s disturbed traffic a bunch. What I’m surprised about is the worldwide coverage. Nobody cared when I-95 collapsed in Philly. I live an hour away as well got a call from friends in the UK asking if I was okay (they knew we were going on a roadtrip for the eclipse). I explained that we lived an hour away, this happened at 5am, and we weren’t even taking that route anyway.

@LauraTrauth

2 ай бұрын

@@ferretyluv True! I wonder if it's because of the nature of the collapse with a cargo ship responsible.... The same way the Ever Given got world-wide attention? And the traffic is going to be bad for the foreseeable future, especially with the top-side beltway construction going on as well.

Here we go, Saturday morning disaster video.

@sololo312

2 ай бұрын

God damit.... I wanted to write First....

@kikapaul611

2 ай бұрын

Or afternoon

@mysterycrumble

2 ай бұрын

@@sololo312 why?

@usernameisusername

2 ай бұрын

❤

@jupiterbjy

2 ай бұрын

sounds so wrong, can't deny I also waited for the disaster video

Living in Baltimore, it’s been a weird shock with the bridge collapse. However one thing that’s been keeping me up is thinking “man one day after the reports are published this is going to be a really interesting Plainly Difficult video”

@843Reboot

2 ай бұрын

its crazy man i live in south carolina and when i was moving down here from NY a few months ago i had to drive over the key bridge, crazy to hear what happened and im prayin for yall and all your traffic lmfao

@MidnightArticuno

2 ай бұрын

@@843Reboot lmao thanks the traffic has gotten 800% worse for sure. I don’t even try 95 if it’s a game day, it’s a crawl now

I always love watching these videos on Saturday. This one especially hits home. I am a native of Rochester, NY and the I90 is the main heart across all of Upstate NY.

Thanks John- from the crisp, cool, very sunny center of U.S.A.

I know a few people that had stopped before going off this bridge. They tried to get others to stop as well. Sadly even though they had parked a truck and 25ft car trailer across some of the road way, a few cars still drove past and off the bridge.

Thank you John.

Great video as always, John. You might want to cover the TETCO LNG tank explosion on Staten Island in 1973. It killed 40 men, the odd thing about it being the tank had been emptied ten months before. Further, it resulted in years of legal and political battles to prevent any more LNG tanks being built there, and one ugly behemoth which was built but never filled, dominating the local skyline

We had walk bridge over river collapsing in Prague in 2017. About the same time as the Genoa bridge colapse.

You make my Saturdays so much better... Plainly Difficult ❤

I grew up in upstate NY, not too far from there, and I was 16 at the time of the collapse. This was, obviously, *huge* news at the time. I remember it very clearly, and the detours they built using the local road bridge and disused railroad bridge just upstream. They're still there today - the old Route 5S bridge now carries the Canalway Trail, while the old railroad bridge carries Route 5S. I guess the road bridge must have been getting old and it was cheaper to shift the road to the rail bridge than to replace it. I used to look for the detour remains whenever I drove through that area. They were easy to spot for years if you knew where to look. They're well overgrown now, you can just about make out the scars on the satellite view.

No fancy 95,000T ships, just some good ol' fashioned poor planning, ah the good ol' days

@maxhill7065

2 ай бұрын

*Back in my day bridges fell down all on their own*

These videos are part of my Saturday routine! Thanks for making them!

Covering American bridge collapses is a lot like painting the Golden Gate bridge... a never ending task! Apparently, 75% of bridges in America are structurally unsound, so in the time it takes to make one video, two more bridges have fallen over. Have you seen that epic bridge in France? Englishman designed it, just sayin'...

@cjmillsnun

2 ай бұрын

The Viaduc de Millau, yes it's stunning.

@janetphillips2875

2 ай бұрын

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Bridge#:~:text=The%20Hernando%20de%20Soto%20Bridge,through%20arch%2C%20with%20bedstead%20endposts.

@troygroomes104

2 ай бұрын

Hopefully people realize that the golden gate Bridge has 1 of her original towers sunk underneath the bridge after being struck by a ship during construction

@horaciokanashiro-hv2zn

2 ай бұрын

​@@troygroomes104 and a worker buried inside one of its concrete pillars ( he fell in). Source: Ripley's. 👍

@troygroomes104

2 ай бұрын

@horaciokanashiro-hv2zn that's actually an urban legend. The Golden gate park states that. Though a sonar reading on the east side (its the Golden gate nickname) reveals the sunken tower. It's impossible to recover the tower as it's on a raised part of the floor that spills down into the bay like a waterfall

Westgate Bridge Melbourne in the 70s. Look that one up.

@andygarside2418

2 ай бұрын

Is that the same bridge that a guy dropped his little girl off? Properly horrific... made me question why I watch true crime documentaries...

@dunning-kruger551

2 ай бұрын

@@andygarside2418 yes it is.

4:40 “yep its wet” 😂

Ayyyy another video! Do the 1991 NYC derailment or the 1987 Conrail collision please.

@admiral_franz_von_hipper5436

2 ай бұрын

Union Sq is a good one. The Malbone St, Williamsburg Bridge, and the Times Sq derailments are also good topics too.

I’m looking forward to this channel’s video on the Francis Scott Key bridge! It probably won’t be made until the new bridge is built of course.

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

There's an irony I have a hospital ad attached to this video lol

I was never expecting a video from the county I live in omg!

I feel like “Cost cutting” could be a free space on the Bingo card

@JimAllen-Persona

2 ай бұрын

It is a given.

@michaelho4014

2 ай бұрын

It was cost cutting here for this case. During its design pilings for the bridge pier foundations were considered to counter the fast flowing schoharie creek but were rejected due to expense. Also the riprap was supposed to protected by surrounding them with steel sheets to prevent them from being flowed away, but they were also eliminated from the final design due to cost. The bridge’s riprap was not periodically inspected if at all The bridge was rebuilt in the 1990s with both very deep pilings and scour surrounding the piers. There is now also a scour inspection regime.

It amazes me how you keep coming up with these "unknown" disasters. You must spend an awful lot of time researching and I thank you for that since I would never have heard about these incidents without you.

Your content is always well worth the watch

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!!

I lived in Albany just east of here, and I've driven over this particular bridge/creek many many times on the NY Thruway, I never knew about this until just a few years ago.

Wonderful a Short Disaster Explained Short and Sweet !

These videos are part of my Saturday morning routine

I think about this disaster several times a week when I ride my bike on the canalway trail just north of where it happened. Especially this time of year when the creek is dangerous and unpredictable.

I joined the Navy in 1984 and was stationed overseas in Spain from 1985 to 1988 , so I never heard of this unfortunate accident . News coming from the United States was very limited and the only TV staion that did any broadcasting was AFARTS ( ARMED FORCES RADIO AND TELEVISION SERVICE) and they only broad - cast on base and not out in town . Most Americans stationed in Spain lived out in town and not on the base .

With all the misinformation out there I would absolutely LOVE to see you cover the Great Chicago Fire.

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you and thank you for the suggestion

u put so much work into your videos, u are funny , a great story teller , love every single video!!

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!!

Drove over it on my way back from Amsterdam to Buffalo the day before it collapsed.

THIS IS AWESOME! I grew up near this bridge and heard stories about this from my parents growing up. Thanks for doing this from here in Upstate NY!

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!!

Atlanta has quite a few bridge-based incidents you could look into!

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

A wealthy mine!

I really like this channel. Thank you.

I would consider the disaster higher than 3 due to a few things. First, the hardship caused by the bridge's absence. There wasn't a good detour. Second, the fact that this was extremely preventable, but wasn't. Third, the fact that even when the original concrete cap was put in, scour was a known thing and wasn't considered a contributing factor to the cracks.

Just drove over this bridge on Tuesday on the way back down from trying to see the eclipse. Looks like every other bridge.

You should do the Mianus river bridge collapse that’s classic neglect and design flaw and happened near me when I was a kid.

Forgive me if you’ve already done it, but the Big Bayou Canot bridge disaster might be up your alley. Barge pusher lost in fog takes a wrong turn and hits a railway bridge, derailing an Amtrak train causing a very unpleasant wreck.

@rapidthrash1964

2 ай бұрын

already done

Thanks John, your videos rule!

Thanks John, from John...

Love your disaster documentaries. Rip to those who perished.

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Always interesting and informative content and i love the funny cartoon guy always popping up in there. Looking forward to watching your video on the current disaster when all the info is in. Been watching your videos on bridge disasters for a while now.

Great video, thanks!

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

This tragedy took place 30min from where I live. A bunch of guys at work, including my father remember seeing it on the news. Absolutely terrifying way to go. May the victims and families find peace.

Great video!

My mom has a phobia of bridges -- driving over bridges, no matter how short, gives her anxiety. She hates the sounds and vibrations as she goes over a bridge and she hates heights, so when driving over bridges that connect mountains over valleys in particular, she voices her discomfort. She told me there were publicized bridge disasters from when she was a kid, and then low level bridges (really common in our area) flooding causing deaths of bold drivers (also sadly common in our area) basically solidified this fear in her. This made me super conscious of bridge safety as a kid, at 9 years old I was asking for engineering information and my dad gave me resources to understand how they were designed and kept safe, prevent erosion from ice, stable with wind, etc. So stuff like this doesn't surprise me. Conspiracy theorists claiming that the latest publicized bridge tragedy is "unexplainable" is incredibly laughable, as I was dedicated to understanding it at a really young age so I could try to bring my mom comfort about what bridges we passed were safe and what she should rightfully avoid. Hopefully, your videos will also help to show people that these tragedies are never far off, and can be prevented.

I will never forget this collapse. My parents always felt that that bridge was not safe during the numerous floods and would comment on it during our numerous trips to Boston from the Finger Lakes area. After the collapse, the detour was excruciatingly long. I never felt comfortable going over the Schoharie again (not just on the Thruway).

Another bridge disaster you could look into is the Ironworkers Memorial Bridg in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I grew up knowinf that workers died when the bridge collapsed during construction, but not more than that

Great Informational Video, Subscribed!

Wow. I'd never thought I'd see upstate NY on here. The Schoharie creek is just one of those things to keep an eye every rain season. I'm not surprised the bridge was improperly kept. You can still see the columns where the bridge stood.

I so enjoy your content 😊

"Woman Might Get Reprieve to Build Ark" - Gotta love American local newspapers....

4:50 that Synth line was fitting perfectly

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

You're so good!

Love your stuff. Look forward to it all week. Keep up the great work! Coming to you from a sunny, cool windy corner of northern Indiana, USA 😂

Another great vid, thankyou

Time for my Saturday morning cartoons... I never miss an episode of Hu-Man and the Masters of Incompetence. Maybe this week the bad guys won't get away with it for once

@Alex-ju8tr

2 ай бұрын

🤣

This collapse was especially important because the Thruway is a busy Interstate, and there aren't any adequate alternatives anywhere near there

@JimAllen-Persona

2 ай бұрын

Now you can hop over to 88.

@robertmoffett3486

2 ай бұрын

@@JimAllen-Persona Thanks, I haven't been in the area for a long time

As life remains Plainly Difficult, so too does explaining why life is so Plainly Difficult. Thus, we watch this Plainly Difficult channel to explain why life is so Plainly Difficult for us. ... This was an exercise in how many times I can fit the phrasing into one short paragraph structure, please keep making these videos so we can learn from the past.

Growing up in upstate New York, I not only remember this but know someone within 2 miles of it. This was also a problem that occurred in the 70's also on the New York Thruway. You'd think that they would have been more attentive. The pay out does not reflect the true loss of life nor the cost of disruption of life and business in that local. Just the costs or investigation and rebuilding far outreach that measly settlement.

I wonder what happened to the lady building an ark in the newspaper...

Thank you

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!!!

I love how this Minnesota bridge disaster caused all disaster channels to do bridge disaster vids from lesser known disaster

This one was close to home, literally. I lived in the area at the time and I remember it well. You did an excellent job of documenting the event. Other than mispronouncing Schoharie, which is understandable if you're not familiar with U.S. east coast Native American names.

John I need stickers of your vehicle designs! Some great ones in this video. Keep up the great content and awesome music!

Thanks John

Thank you for introducing us to Kea's Ark!

On the Bingo card, i would argue for Temporary fix to be used aswell; Cause there is no way they thought that putting a slab of concrete on top of the crack was a permanent solution to the problem

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Very true!

If i have learned anything from plainly difficult its that every build/bridge is about to collapse and is highly radioactive

One of my mothers childhood friends was on the bridge when it collapsed. Both her and her daughter died. My mother still talks about her friend to this day.

What would make this bridge less likely to collapse ? Rocks. No, we can't afford rocks.

It makes sense to cover something that happened 3 decades or more ago since the investigation will be complete. It would be embarrassing to do something on the Baltimore Patapsco River Bridge collapse and then later they found that the ship lost power due to a computer bug. Before you laugh at that possibility, apparently the USS Yorktown had some trouble when it Windows NT tried to divide by 0.

I’m working on a research project at Fort Lewis College centered around creating a drone that can be deployed and automatically scan the riverbed to detect scour and prevent things like this. We are in the super early stages, but once finished it’ll allow counties everywhere to prevent this with a $1000 drone rather than a $50000 truck.

nice to watch with a cup of coffee ☕😊👍

As horrifying as most of these disasters are, your captions and drawings keep making me laugh.

Oh yeah, I've seen this covered a few times before.

I immediately thought of your video on Sunshine Skyway... and Tasman... and I-40...

Love your videos, you should look into the collapse of the West Gate Bridge during construction in Melbourne, Australia. Such a tragic incident

6:18 - Ms. Tawana building her Ark might have had the right idea.

Took me 2 minutes and 3 rewinds to hear the name properly 😂 I'm from the general area; I kept hearing "school hairy" and was like where tf is that in NYS? 😭😂

I didnt realise this vid came out on my birthday nice ^w^

That’s a pretty damn big creek. It’s more like a small river.

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

I ageee

At the end of the video, seeing a raised walkway, and I can’t help but think of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. 😬

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

I’ve got a video on it if you haven’t seen it before!

Have you done the 1993 Amtrak derailment on the Big Bayou Canot bridge in Alabama?

If you're looking for more bridge disasters, please do the Mianus River Bridge in Connecticut.

@PlainlyDifficult

2 ай бұрын

Thanks for the suggestion!