Here's the outro song in full: kzread.info/dash/bejne/a3ybs5qqerbbhrw.html

@benneburg

Жыл бұрын

Would fit right into a Boards of Canada playlist, nice

@scottl.1568

Жыл бұрын

You ever thought about doing that 2017 explosion at the Loy-Lange Box Factory in St. Louis?

@waitingforanalibi2224

Жыл бұрын

Why was it that as soon as you said "brick built towers" and "certain skill", the first person that jumped into my head was Fred Dibnah? Then you said his name! I would listen to him for hours banging on about steeples and steam engines!

@waitingforanalibi2224

Жыл бұрын

Mind you, you cant miss the Ikea towers from my window!

@pudgiehedgie

Жыл бұрын

one thing they didnt take into consideration is the change in temperature from fall into spring would have also caused changes in curing times

I live 10 minutes from the plant. There is a black line around the tower marking the spot where the section collapsed and construction stopped. If you look at the names of the victims, you'll notice a lot of repeated last names, not by coincidence. The builders of the towers were almost all locals and many families had multiple relatives die there. Also it is spelled Pleasants Power Station, named for Pleasants County.

@melissaglasser4759

Жыл бұрын

Same here, from Pleasants County. One of my classmates lost not only his father, but 6 other relatives that day.

@theinfamousb-ran5729

Жыл бұрын

Ritchie County here!

@RobBoss757

Жыл бұрын

See this is a good point he coulda put in the video cause this is exactly along the lines of what I was wondering happened with them

@kimhohlmayer7018

Жыл бұрын

Across the river and north of you nice folks and I’m old enough to remember when this happened.

@coolvideos605

Жыл бұрын

Wood County checking in

A very similar cooling-tower scaffold collapse happened around this same time at a nuke plant in Oregon, but "only" killed eight guys. Freestanding scaffold is now standard.

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the suggestion

@jamesboyle6134

Жыл бұрын

Only...

@Ferdinand52

Жыл бұрын

@@jamesboyle6134 "only"

@4thfrom7

Жыл бұрын

I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that it wasn't always standard. It just doesn't compute.

@gnarthdarkanen7464

Жыл бұрын

@@4thfrom7 Scaffold and ladder jacking had proven useful and quick, far quicker than trying to build up the free-standing stuff on its own WHILE you're building a structure... The problem is that BOTH of those methods can only be relatively safe as long as they're engineered carefully and then executed precisely as prescribed... The fact is that in the field, circumstances almost never fit with what works in a laboratory or any other "controlled circumstances", and changes to methods have to come with the changes faced in the field... BUT this inherently raises the risks involved in such "quick and convenient" methods of construction. At the same time, progress of any kind only happens when we experiment. Experimentation REQUIRES risk... SO those risks get taken until they're proven too great to be sustained, and usually at the cost of damages, injuries, and lives lost. ;o)

My stepfather was a truck driver on that project and was just arriving and about to head into the building when it collapsed. He helped dig out three victims before he couldn't handle what he was seeing. He never went back and ended up getting another job. He had occassional nightmares about even years later.

I lost my maternal grandfather that way; he was working with a crew pumping concrete for the head house of a grain elevator when their scaffolding collapsed and they fell 75 feet to the bottom of the silo. He lived about an hour after the fall. This happened in Clinton, Iowa, before I was born, so I never knew him.

Before you described how the collapse happened I was already thinking "you can't use day old concrete to support anything, it hasn't cured yet! And then OSHA gave me that sweet validation. Thanks for another good one, John.

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@neuralmute

Жыл бұрын

I was just thinking that myself - this entire process is completely insane! That fresh concrete is just going to crumble under any load. And it did.

@JulieLShepherd2

Жыл бұрын

My uncle was an ironworker and said that at the time. He had just come down off the tower and said "That concrete is still green" but nobody listened and then in minutes, it collapsed.

@skylined5534

Жыл бұрын

🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵🎶 *Come with meeeee and you'll seeeee a thousand OSHA violations* 🎶🎶🎵🎶🎵

@namibjDerEchte

Жыл бұрын

Well, it can be used for something, just not for much. After all, it did work once, and the second time they added some more corner cutting, pushing it over the edge and causing the structure to fail.

Good of you to make a note of Fred, for any viewers outside the UK, he's a national legend and widely loved by multiple generations

Parkersburg native here. Had locals who were on the tower when it came down, may they rest in peace. This tragedy never should have happened. Have a cousin that was on site, had just gotten down and was on the way to their vehicle when it happened. Thank you for bringing attention to a disaster most aren't familiar with, but locally, is known quite well. RIP Roy & Larry Deem.

@nukiepoo

Жыл бұрын

I remember this

@jeremy28135

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the comment. RIP to your friends 🙏. Hopefully we can learn from it

@bhatkat

Жыл бұрын

Only $1,700/per worker so not that big a deal though, right? Imagine in some important people like police officers had gotten hurt./s

@danielgardner394

3 ай бұрын

$1700.00 doesn't even cover a funeral. Insult to injury is an understatement. Why do the people of this region always vote for those who have zero value on their lives?

I'm native to Pleasants County, and still live 5 miles from the plant. We lost many relatives, including my great grandfather Emmett. Thank you for doing a video on it PD, but I must say it's a strange feeling of knowing exactly who, what, and where the video focused on. RIP Emmett Steele, our relatives, and the many other men killed on the tower that morning.

One of the disturbing realities of this collapse was that the scaffolding wasn't even an engineered structure. It was described in the report as a "clever piece of engineering created by a very knowledgeable inventor" the creators had worked in the concrete industry and felt that the standard scaffolding method was too cumbersome and slow for building the hyper-parabolic shape of cooling towers and they could do it, in the words of John Gohlia, "Faster, Better, Cheaper" with a combination sliding form/scaffolding invention.

Always appreciate hearing Fred Dibnah's name mentioned. A fascinating character, and the only person who ever made me feel sorry for a chimney tower coming down.

Fred Dinbah is a Northern legend, my mum once saw him in Blackpool. Knock down brick chimneys through the week, then work on ye steam powered engine at the weekend. Fred's story telling ability is captivating, he has a reasonable library of videos on KZread too.

It's just plainly difficult to not simply take time to view another great video from John when he uploads

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@kenneth804

Жыл бұрын

Same, I was about to do chores and saw this video. I am stuck for the next 15 mins, lol

@grmpEqweer

Жыл бұрын

I just now found the upload. Plainly Difficult to surf away. 🙂

@joseph-mariopelerin7028

Жыл бұрын

true! i'm not even suppose to be on YT... it's an overwhelming force that drag us back here

“It worked!” “Great, let’s start skipping steps, cutting corners and overloading everything.”

@skylined5534

Жыл бұрын

"Yay poor workmanship! Yay cost-cutting! Yay trying to evade manslaughter charges!"

I’m from the area. I have relatives that were working on this when it happened. Luckily they both survived. Thanks for covering this.

@williamgroves3134

Жыл бұрын

I live about a hour and 15 minutes away.

@MrAkurvaeletbe

Жыл бұрын

I doubt it, he said nobody survived, so someone is lying to you…

@theinfamousb-ran5729

Жыл бұрын

@@MrAkurvaeletbe they were not on the scaffolding. They were working on that project, on site that day. That’s quite a rude comment, for someone who assumes there were only 50 guys working on that tower when it collapsed.

@reversalmushroom

Жыл бұрын

@@theinfamousb-ran5729 Then maybe you should've made your comment more clear. When you say they were working ON it, that's misleading. Especially when you say "luckily, they survived".

@theinfamousb-ran5729

Жыл бұрын

@@reversalmushroom yes because the tons of concrete and rebar falling from a great height was not dangerous to anyone but those guys on the scaffolding…. They were working on the tower. Just not in the air.

Thank you for doing this. My dad was there and helped with the recovery. It affected him greatly.

Fred Dibnah is amazing. I’m an American and Fred’s dedication to these old smokestacks bringing them down and steam engines is second to none! RIP Fred!

Tricky! When it said "Power Station Disaster," I was expecting something radioactive, not a construction issue. Well played, sir. Another great video.

"Or just ignore my side tangent" yeah... I've got ADHD. 😂 I can feel myself hyperfixating on this rabbit hole all weekend.

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Sorry

@Vandal_Savage

Жыл бұрын

Watching the Dibnah laddering a chimney is a wonder to behold... 😁

@Vandal_Savage

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/eGRoxqmEYcLdiaQ.html

There is something eminently soothing about your voice, coupled with an incredible ability to both find and entertainingly present extremely fascinating events. Dunno why tHe AlGoRiThM suggested you to me, but I am so glad it did my dude.

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Wow, thank you!

@baffledmouse

Жыл бұрын

Same!

@skylined5534

Жыл бұрын

@@PlainlyDifficult You're able to relay horrific things in the most soporific way, that's quite an ability! You put me in mind in that respect of the chap from Fascinating Horror. A collaboration between you two would be rather splendid!

@jnerdsblog

Жыл бұрын

@@PlainlyDifficult Nah man, thank YOU!

An engineer studies at college and registers for chartered status to gain employment: $100,000 in debt before they even begin work. A manager who has no technical skill, and BS's their way into the job, bully's workers into cutting corners and contributes to catastrophic failures killing those workers: bonus $100,000. Guess which one suffers guilt after a fatal accident, and guess which one moves on to another job guilt-free…

When I worked for an architecture firm we had a few clients in Dewees Island, SC. Everything on the island had to be “green/sustainable”. This meant NO CONCRETE. The wood pilings that the homes were built on (all in flood zone) were just directly pile-driven into the ground.

Yikes imagine the terror of seeing the scaffolding start peeling off on the opposite side of the tower, and working its way around to inevitably rip out the floor under your feet.

@krashd

Жыл бұрын

First thing I thought of, you would know you were about to fall to your death but there would be nothing you could do.

@jerrymizialko8083

Жыл бұрын

No

Historical side note: natural draft cooling towers were designed and patented by Dutch engineer Frederik van Iterson for Dutch State Mines (DSM) in 1917. The fist one was erected in 1918 near the Dutch mining town of Heerlen (my home town). They're still called "van Iterson torens" (van Iterson towers) in the Netherlands.

Love that you name checked Fred Dibnap! My father’s hero and someone who I watched his programmes all the time!

I’m glad to see that there’s more than one fan of Fred. What a true treasure. I live in the US , but at 52 , I grew up around some of these older Victorian engines and still enjoy a good old engine show. I also, as a welder, have worked around some of these “old hands” that worked on the plants being built on the east coast (North Carolina,Sheron Harris plant to be exact) in the 70’s and early 80’s There were originally 3 units planned but 3 Mile island happened and only one was completed. I’ve heard some stories about the construction though. 🤔. Much love from Raeford North Carolina, USA 🤙🤙

It's always a good day when John uploads

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

That was really nice of you to give Old Fred a mention, he really was a one of a kind There appears to be some movement on getting his home and garden (with a fully functioning mine and pit-head!) opened to the public again sometime, perhaps as a museum, you should get your name down for a early visit before it gets all health&safety sanitised 😉

@rottsandspots

7 ай бұрын

I used to work round the corner from his home/garden many years ago, and I remember going on an open day on my lunch break. If it's been shut I hope it reopens to the public. I don't remember seeing the mine or Pit head but I only got 30 minutes for lunch.

My great uncle and another relative lost their lives on this. It was a Friday and the boss made a deal with the men that if they finished by noon he’d still pay them all day. I still live in this area. I’m a union electrician, I’ve worked many days in pleasants power house.

@JTA1961

Жыл бұрын

Overtaxing the lines possibly with weight inorder to take off at noon. Starting to make sense now

@benstark9495

Жыл бұрын

@@JTA1961 overtaxing the curing rate of the concrete, actually. But, yes poor decisions are often fueled by monetary gain.

Fred Dibnah's video on "Laddering" is calm, yet wildly intense. I'd recommend anyone with a fear of heights to watch and learn.

Fred was and is a effing LEGEND! They don't make them like that these days!

As soon as you showed the cooling tower I knew where this was going. I started watching this and thought, "Don't tell me the same kind of accident happened twice!" Then I realized I had the name of the place confused with one of the many power plants of similar design built around the same time. I can remember being in high school and a teacher telling us about this accident.

Every time I go to Owensboro KY for Moonlite BBQ I drive past a coal plant with natural draft cooling towers and its hard to put into words just how big these things really are. You could fit an entire 20 story building inside one, and its parking lot. I remember this one from my favorite History Channel show, Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters; particularly bad engineering.

3:42 'and yet you don't want to see my face' Idk about that one John, that avatar's lookin pretty cute~

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

:D

Good one, John! I spent most of my working life in the construction industry (Heavy equipment hauling/relocation, mostly.) and I have never heard of this one. I always like how you explain the incidents, in a way that a layman can understand it, but a pro won't get exasperated, going "get on with it!" That's a fine balance, that I think a lot of people don't stop to appreciate! I always love your videos! Keep up the great work!

Watch Fred Dibnah's work, it is well worth it! The man is a character and has a crazy job! I showed it to a mate who works in construction, who showed it to a colleague who used to do the same work. Even he was impressed, but did mention he normally used a bit more rigging than Fred.

I went down that fred D. rabbit hole. That guy is my hero. What a life he lead. He is a modern day legend. Thank God so much of his story was recorded because it would be hard to belive otherwise.. RIP Fred.

Hey John, could you make a video on the Senior Road tower collapse in Texas? It's kind of an obscure but interesting accident that isn't well known.

@P_RO_

Жыл бұрын

And there's video of the accident. Once again failure to follow specified procedures ended up in tragedy.

@rtqii

Жыл бұрын

That is one I am very familiar with, there is good video of the antenna lift and failure. There was a formal investigation and the results are published. I would like to see a video on that too. There were a bunch of problems with that job, they were going too fast, cutting corners, and the service company designed their own hoisting system and gin pole mount without an engineer checking their work... The hardware used to attach the gin pole to the tower was defective, when they tested a U bolt from the same batch it failed at 50% of its rated load capacity, and the load they applied was 7 times greater than their napkin calculations had shown them... No engineer.

Shout out for the Fred Dibnah mention! An absolute icon of my childhood

"Our friend good old cost-cutting" Yeah he's usually involved 🙄 I love Saturday with PD, the new meter is hilarious 🤣

Always a happy Saturday when a Plainly Difficult video drops!

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

😬😬

@gatsbye53

Жыл бұрын

​@@PlainlyDifficult well, maybe not for the people IN the video. 😅🤔

Your perfect ratios of utter seriousness and humor are to be beaten by no one

8:00am on Saturday and John’s here !

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

:D

I generally love OPs vid but this one is damn near directly read from the wiki article. :(

Just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for these. I appreciate your commitment to content.

You have such a calming voice for a Biblically accurate angel.

Nice shout-out to Fred, a true legend 🙏

Oh my god, my family is from Saint Mary’s! The monument to this disaster is in my grandmothers backyard, she would take me on walks to go see it all the time as a kid. My grandfather and great uncle both retired from this plant!

@trackvbwrx

Жыл бұрын

Insane to see someone mention this plant. Working in the cable industry I lived in Vienna, WV but chose to run our Saint Mary’s route because my family knows everyone there, I passed this plant every day. This is the first I’ve ever seen mention of this incident, so thank you.

You get a like this time not just for excellent content, but also for Fred! Bless his soul

Heartbreaking. Hope those who witnessed the horrors that day were able to find some peace.

I watched a bunch of Fred's old videos. That guy was awesome! His views on chimneys and life are perfect!

Always so nice to see a new Plainly difficult video!

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Thank you

Fred Dibnah was an legend. Very intelligent bloke. Working-Class icon. Great work as always John. 👍

Always nice to see good old Fred getting a shout.

My husband put up and tore down complex scaffolding all over a Chevron refinery for over a decade. He's gonna love this video! Will show him tonight. Thanks, mate!

3:40 Can't believe we got an actual face reveal for John in this one. Also is anyone really surprised that John is an eldritch horror casually observing and critiquing humanity's many failures?

I've never even heard about this accident, and I live only about 70-80 miles from where it happened. I've also been to Marietta, Parkersburg, Vienna, and the surrounding area numerous times. It's crazy that something could have happened so close and in the same general occupation as me, yet I've never heard about it. It shows how quickly things like this can be lost to history. Thank you sir, for covering things like this and bringing them back Into the public eye.

@glenroberts7388

Жыл бұрын

If you travel rt2 near plant a memorial was placed listing all those killed in the accident. I was working near the power plant that terrible day. We traveled north to Sistersville WV and crossed ferry to Ohio and went south to Marietta to avoid the area. I think road was blocked at power plant because of recovery efforts. Sad day!

@AToolWithTools

Жыл бұрын

It's considered the deadliest construction accident in US history, not sure how it slipped under the radar

@HotspotsSoutheast

Жыл бұрын

My dad worked on that tower the week before it fell. He could have been on that list. Lots of tragedies happened in WV over the years. The Point Pleasant bridge collapse. The time a barge full of fuel struck the railroad bridge in Parkersburg and exploded, blowing out most of the windows in the surrounding towns and taking the railroad bridge out of service for about a year. Mine cave ins, chemical plant explosions, etc. Life in WV is hard sometimes.

Oh boy I'm zoomin this time

It's always nice seeing another video from you!

Thank you John for an excellent video.

Your Ralph Nader cutout was spot on. Thanks for the video!

I loved the Fred Dibner reference!! Nice touch. Fascinating Man!!

Especially great music in this one, John! Keep up the great work!!!

Best channel on KZread! Thanks for posting. 👍

I've listened to this channel way too much when at the very beginning, I hear in my head, "Psst...."

Mega John! Fred Dibnah was awesome. I’ve watched a few videos of him “laddering a chimney.” Amazing stuff.

Great as always!👍☘️

Wet and Windy

Oh yes the infamous willow towers disaster thank you for these amazing videos sir and merry Christmas to you 😊

We love your faceless voice! Thank you for continuing to upload great videos!!

¡Gracias! Great work as usual. I remember this disaster from when I was a kid. One of the neighbor's Brothers was killed in it . :( it is one of the few memories from my youth anymore jajaja . Sadly not a laugh though as I mostly remember our neighbor crying and watching the news stories about it.

Great documentary and kudos for referencing Fred Dibnah!

Yay. A disaster. Good morning John. Wish you'd do a video on pondcrete. Love for you to finish the rocky flats story.

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@SilveniumTheDrifter

Жыл бұрын

Me too!

Hey John, the first two tracks from your nuclear disaster concept album are really good. I've been listening to them gaming this past week daily.

@skylined5534

Жыл бұрын

"Did ya like that?!" Fred Dibnah, legendary bloke!

Great channel. Excellent work

Fred Dibnahs videos in discovery where the main reason i wanted to get into engineering as a 7 year old. Hes an inspirational person who seems to be unfortunately not very well known within my age group (30's). Thanks again John for the time you put into your videos

your channel is the best on yt

I’m not saying that all workers are innocent but I am saying a lot of the time we aren’t to blame. As an industrial mechanic everyday I’d go to my boss and give him the same two options: the way to fix it right or I can rig it. Guess which option he took 99% of the time.

I live in WV, and this reminds me of when I was a kid back in the 80's, they were doing some upgrades on another large coal plant North of this one (Mitchell plant? Cardinal plant?, not sure, we've got a lot of them) that involved adding a new boiler, another cooling tower, and replacing the old smoke stacks with new ones capable of flue gas desulfurization. I remember looking up at the 1000 foot high stacks and 600 foot high cooling towers and being in total awe that something like that could even be built at all. The math and geometry involved in setting up the scaffolding and forms to get a perfect cylindrical hyperboloid curve hundreds of feet high is mind blowing. Nothing collapsed on that build, but a worker did fall from the top of the 1000 foot stack. Needless to say, he died.

Ambient temperature and humidity are definitely important in the curing process. I wonder what April conditions were like? Low temperatures and a dry boundary layers affect bonding of the old pour with the new pour. I also wonder how the differing sections of reinforcing were bound together. Finally I have seen cracking in large pours that can warm significantly with the exothermic curing process. The subsequent cooling causes differential shrinking and stress cracking. These are wonderful structures but they’re inherent strength comes from their balanced loads so the early pours of a new lift can impact the strength initially. That only a few cubic yards had been poured suggests a seriously compromised structure beneath. The lack of pour samples is a concern.

A few things not mentioned about the incident. The steel bolts used in the scaffolding, were reused and some had bent under the weight, preventing them from being inserted properly, yet the ones in charge, assumed the other bolts could handle the weight. As work moved upward, the diameter would become smaller, meaning there was much less material towards the top to distribute weight. Because the cement wasn't fully dried, plus each spot had to take on more weight, the panels were under a lot more stress, and bent inward, like a stack of dominos falling. I would be years before anyone was willing to talk about the disaster, and it took a child who wanted to know what happened, to get a memorial set up for the fallen.

@carlmorgan8452

5 ай бұрын

West Virginia ❤ almost Heaven?

I lived in Belmont, WV when this disaster occurred. I was in 10th grade at the time, and I remember being bussed home early from school that day. Our bus stop was located right next to the Belmont volunteer fire department, which, at that time, was being used as a temporary morgue. I remember that some members of my own class had lost as many as 8 family members in a single day. It was unbelievable. Given how infamous the Sullivan Brothers story remains today, I always wondered why this event didn't become equally remembered. Instead, this disaster ended in much the same way you would expect for such incidents from that time. They swept it under the rug and allowed it to be quickly forgotten. The value of human life was reduced to a few thousand dollars apiece, and that was that. There was no real consequence for owners of the Pleasant's Power Station.

I love Fred’s old videos !!

Well done for the video and giving Fred Dibnah a shout out.

I bwwn stuck on you radiation videos lately before thatvwas the dam failures like all of them will continue watching you sir

YOU'RE THE MAN for mentioning Fred. I wonder if he ever realized how much of an impact he had.

I like the retro touch if the barcode look top right when there's a break or part change....clever

3:42 Biblically accurate John.

@PlainlyDifficult

Жыл бұрын

As god intended

Living in Williamstown when this happened. Very sad

PD says: "I rate it 3 balls", yet shows 4 balls. Seems like the contractor isn't the only one not following correct procedure..🙄

@johnladuke6475

Жыл бұрын

I was confused too, but he explained the scale a few videos back and "balls" is the name of Level 3. He just strangely chose 4 balls instead of 3 or too many to count.

Thank you for the video. Very insightful... hard to believe things like this still happen. p.s. would love to see the footnote font changed to something more readable (for the tiny screen I use:). Yes, my bad. Thanks so much Mr J. Cheers!

well it sure is cold john, brr, i got my onezee on ;) great vid as always.

Wow, didn't think you would do this disaster. It's a very sad story.

Haha had to check out the 'side tangent' since you said that 🤣 fascinating guy and interesting rabbit hole cheers bro😊

I lived in Parkersburg then and I knew a couple workers on site but they weren't on the tower. I still remember the initial news reports.

There was something PBS that covered this, you could have gotten a few extra bits from it.

April is a pretty cold month up there. Given that they were working on a mid-part of the tower, the previously installed sections may have been installed in even colder weather. This stalls the necessary chemical reactions necessary to bind the concrete together. Concrete formulations are changed every day due to humidity and temperature to try and counteract this, but they may have simply been rushing the already installed mix too fast to save time on the install. In a stressed concrete installation this is a fatal flaw. Fifty-one people died instantly because of this error. My condolences to the hundreds of families and friends of those this affected.

Talking about industrial mismanagement that ended in disaster: The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board recently published a new video, warning against the neglect of critical parts of the production line, especially high pressure vapour tanks, in a report about the disaster that happened at Loy-Lange box company in St. Louis, MO on April 3rd 2017. Google somehow found this report and put it onto my front page; and I think it is worth a watch.

More side notes and side tangents please! 🌟🙌

My wife knew one of the victims who was from Belington, WV. It's been so long that's about all I remember.