Mega Disasters - Skywalk Collapse

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the American Midwest Missouri Kansas City 1978 too many outsiders it's still a Midwestern backwater best know for cattle trading in reality the city is emerging from the shadow of economic recession as a diverse commercial center Kansas City authorities greenlight a major urban redevelopment scheme a new 50 million dollar luxury hotel the Hyatt Regency the project looks set to shake off the city's outdated Cowtown image May 1978 builder start work on the 150 meter tall 40 story Hyatt as they begin phase one of the build local engineering firm GCE owned by Jack Gilliam is still finalizing the hotel's design this new fast-track approach means the project should be completed much more swiftly than a conventional build Gilliam has a 10-year track record of innovative building projects but the Hyatt corporation expects a groundbreaking architectural statement turning the vision into a reality will be one of his firm's biggest challenges yet the hotel centerpiece will be it's impressive 44 meter wide 15 meter high glass ceiling 2 atrium 3 suspended walkways will span this vast space connecting guest rooms to a conference center and shopping complex but then 17 months in there's a major setback a section of the atriums glass ceiling the size of a tennis court crashes to the ground engineer Jack Gilliam analyzes the problem he discovers that bolts connecting ceiling panels to the steel roof beams were wrongly installed but he concludes that the accident is a one-off July 1st 1980 despite the setbacks the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel opens on schedule it's one of the city's most spectacular buildings and the atriums suspended walkways quickly become a major talking point your first impression was this large open airy space and the Skywalk seemingly suspended in air and people went Wow Friday July 17th 1981 6:00 p.m. in the 12 months since it opened the Hyatt has become one of the city's top night spots tonight 1500 people crowd into the famous atrium for one of the hotels most popular regular events a 1940 styled tea dance competition as the dancers practice their moves a TV crew arrives in the lobby reporter Micheal Mahoney has worked for the local news station KMBC for a year he's here to film a light-hearted feature item for the evening news but it's not his idea of a major assignment I hate features I like hard news stories and I took the job in Kansas City as an opportunity to get into a large American market and hopefully at some point I would work my way into I was more comfortable with which was a hard news story on the other side of the lobby engineer Walter Trueblood and his wife Shirley are enjoying their eighth tea dance at the highest they've shared a passion for dancing since they were teenage sweethearts courting in the 50s as loyal customers Walter and Shirley enjoys special benefits the tea dance people had been kind enough to send us to free drink tickets and I never turn down a free martini in my life local mortgage broker Frank Freeman is the first timer of the tea dance he's here with his boyfriend of five years Roger Grigsby they've been looking forward to the dance for weeks and Roger is in his element here is an extrovert there wasn't anybody he didn't know he could talk to anybody and you'd think he had known him for life and he had just met him meanwhile at Walter and Shelley True Blood decide against entering the competition instead they joined dozens of other couples crowding onto the first floor walkway which offers a bird's-eye view of the dance floor five meters below 704 p.m. the band strikes up a popular Foxtrot and the dance competition begins mic Mahoney's crew films the top shot from the first floor restaurant on the first floor skywalk Walter and Shirley True Blood sway to the music booming up from the atrium nine meters above them dozens more watch from the third floor sky board on the lobby floor directly underneath the sky walks Frank Freeman and Roger Griggs feet admire the competitors moves 7:05 p.m. in the restaurant on the first floor mezzanine reporter mike Mahoney's cameraman runs out of power at that point dave was setting up his shot and I reached over into our camera bag to get some fresh batteries then Mahoney has a noise from across the atrium I heard this real sharp metallic pop pop and it was a sound that was so foreign to the environment that I immediately looked up there was a loud pop and the floor dropped about six to eight inches I took Shirley's arm and said I think we ought to step off we took about three steps Mike Mahoney Tracey's the pumping noise to the sky walks opposite him I was directly on level with the second walkway and the second walkway began to sag and it took just a few seconds but it seemed like forever at the moment sort of sagged down and then all of a sudden it just blocked people watching horror as the 1st and 3rd floor glass and concrete skywars plummet into the crowded Lobby the upper level came down and the whole thing went down as an elevator he looked at down window oh my god dozens of dunces and spectators my dad crushed beneath 65 tons of concrete and steel more of buried alive unless rescuers reach them fast many more will die moments ago local reporter Mike Mahoney was capturing these carefree images of a tea dance in Kansas City now his video camera records these horrific scenes of devastation it was an awful scene was just terrible there were people that were cut badly there were people that were mutilated there were people that had had limbs amputated and there were people that had been trapped underneath these walkways either smashed to the ground or sandwiched in between and so it was a gruesome scene stunned survivors make frantic 911 phase they need ambulances at the Hyatt Regency part of the Rockefeller a whole bunch of people there must be hundred seven oh seven pm two minutes since the collapse mortgage lender Frank Freeman is in shock he and his boyfriend Roger was standing beneath the walkways when they collapsed Frank has been hit on the back and shoulder by falling debris but escaped being crushed by the narrowest of margins when I was all said and done I was facing the catwalks and the toes of my shoes were just barely touching the catwalks on the floor there's no sign of Roger a few metres away lying under the remains of the first and third floor walkways his property value up mark Williams just seconds ago he was getting a drink at the bar now he's pinned to the floor under 65 tons of wreckage my left leg was up behind my head and up here behind my right ear my right leg was torn out of the socket and was also laying back up here behind me so both of the legs are bent behind me in her up behind my head now engineer Walter Trueblood who was on the first floor skywalk regains his senses there's a crushing weight on his chest the only thing I could move was was my arm enough to pull my tie off so then give me a little more here he has no idea where his wife Shirley is or even that she survived 7:17 firefighters and emergency personnel arrived they swiftly set up a makeshift morgue in the hotel lobby outside they turn the hotel's taxi right into a treatment center in his concrete tomb Walther True Blood has no idea if his wife Shirley is alive then he hears something the next voice I heard was good old Shirley saying Walt and I asked her how she was doing I remember Walter was calling me and wanting to know you know if I was alright and we couldn't touch but we could talk now broken water pipes severed by the collapse posed a new threat to survivors water from the hotel's giant tanks is flooding the lobby at a rate of over 1,000 liters per minute under the rubble hundreds of people who survived the collapse now face the prospect of drowning McWilliams can feel the water rising I'm starting to breathe the water into my nose and I remember thinking to myself I'm on one of the highest points in the city of Kansas City and I'm gonna drown to death as mock struggles to keep his head above water rescue was a helpless to stem the flow kansas city's fire chief pinpoints the problem the hotel's front doors are acting like a dam stopping the water in the lobby from escaping he sends in bulldozers they smashed the doors down water starts to pour out of the lobby - Marc Williams huge relief the water levels start to fall 9:30 over two hours since the collapse Walter and Shirley True Blood finally here rescue workers nearby and shout for help the rescue workers attach steel cables to the beam thinning surely to the floor and begin to lift it with a crane they have to go slowly one slip and the beam could kill her they had been talking with us and I told him I said I feel like I'm about to faint would that be bad and I remember him saying old lady please hang on he said I'm almost there but last rescuers Paul surely free just meters away another team drags her husband Walter from the rubble and screaming in agony 10:00 p.m. Frank Freeman who was finally persuaded to leave the hotel is getting treatment at a nearby Medical Center when a call comes in rescuers have found the body of a man he fits Rajas description they bring Franco photo to make sure and he didn't look he didn't look like he'd been hit with anything I mean he had no cuts there are no bruises it looks like he was just laying there sleeping and I said what happened he they had a broken neck 2:30 a.m. seven and a half hours after the collapse now rescuers are only finding dead bodies what they don't realize is that under the rubble someone is still alive but property value our Marc Williams is buried so deep that he can't even hear the workmen above him I'm getting mad you know why isn't somebody lifting this stuff off me that's I'd be organizing a group of people to lift this off of me then he hears something risky was a drilling into the debris directly above him I heard someone bang on something above my head be at the sky walk or whatever and I started yelling hey I'm under here but the noise of the jackhammers drowns out Marc's frantic cries he survived the walkway collapse and the threat of drowning now Marc Williams faces the unthinkable serious injury or even death at the hands of the rescue workers the jackhammer comes through the rubble again and it goes between my legs and now I'm thinking they've triangulated me the next ones coming right through the middle of my back and I got braced for it then as the crew line up the jackhammer for another run somebody finally hears marks desperate cries and I remember a guy saying my god there's somebody alive under here 4:30 a.m. firefighter ray wind pause mark williams from the pile of debris almost ten hours after the collapse he's the last person found alive but he's horribly injured you could see the soles of his shoes back here and he sits up and I'm like wow this guy's alive I was happy happy as hell to see him five a.m. an ambulance crew rushes mock to hospital he still conscious but his back is broken and his kidneys are failing I do remember laying there and my mother asked the doctor is he gonna live and the doctor said I don't think he's gonna make it i sat up and I said like hell I'm not gonna make it I'm gonna be hunting ducks on October 27th when the season opens the new a special report as McWilliams undergoes emergency surgery the enormity of the hired tragedy emerges responsible for the hired skywalk collapse because of the Hyatt disaster at Missouri State and the lives of the survivors and the loved ones of the dead 114 people have been killed a further 186 are injured many of them severely it's the deadliest structural failure in American engineering history across the United States people want answers how can a key part of a prestigious public projects like the Hyatt Hotel simply fall apart by rewinding the disaster and by going deep into the investigation we reveal what really happened at the Kansas City Hyatt how so many people died and why the hotel's state-of-the-art skywalks gateway with such devastating consequences advanced computer simulation will take us where no camera can go into the heart of the disaster zone Monday July 20th 1981 three days after the disaster relatives hold the first funerals for the victims Kansas City is in mourning Hayate the hotel operator and the building's owner the Crown Center redevelopment corporation start their own investigations into the tragedy but Kansas City's Mayor Richard Berkeley wants an independent public inquiry he asks the National Bureau of Standards to step in the NBS is a highly regarded independent federal body that provides scientific analysis for the US government but its investigation could take months local newspaper the Kansas City Star decides to shortcut the process the paper wants a local structural engineer weighing lishka to become its undercover investigator I was surprised by the phone call and a little apprehensive about about taking job on one side I wanted to do it because I wanted to get involved and see what what really did happen lishka knows that the Hyatt was a fast track project completed in just under two and a half years did the speed of the construction caused shoddy workmanship ordered faulty materials defective steel or poorly mixed concrete caused the collapse if so many more buildings under construction in booming Kansas City may be at risk the answers lie in the rubble inside the Hyatts atrium three days after the collapse the building's owners decide to let the press inside the ruined atrium but the reporters among them undercover sleuth Wayne lishka soon find there's a catch the journalists are only allowed to view the wreckage from 30 meters away but the Kansas City Star guests that lishka might be kept at arm's length unhatched an ingenious plot lishka is armed with a secret weapon a photographer with a telephoto lens lishka can see the tangled wreckage of the first and third floor walkways where they fell on the lobby floor overhead all that remains of the original structure are 6 5 meter long hanger rods still fixed to the ceiling it's enough to allow lishka to work out the walkway design the upper walkway would have been suspended from the ceiling by this set of rods vishka realizes that there must have been a second set of rods bolted into the upper walkway that carried the lower walkway 9 meters below more importantly the ceiling hanger odds are a crucial clue to where the failure happened first then caught my hours arrives were still hanging from the ceiling since the rods are intact lishka believes that the structure must have failed at the point where the upper walkway was connected to the hanger Royce did of faulty fixing at this critical connection point fail to find out he would need to examine the wreckage more closely something that builders owners will not allow lishka hopes the photographs may reveal more but now he has a brainwave City Hall must toll the set of the hired blueprints they'll detail the fixings used and may hold some clue to their apparent failure but City Hall tells lishka he can't see the blueprints librarians are in the process of cataloging them his undercover investigation for the Kansas City Star hits a brick wall while lishka swooping stalls the official investigation gets into gear a team of four scientists from the National Bureau of Standards flies in to Kansas City among them is lead investigator Edward frame his first priority to examine the hides collapsed walkways but when he arrives at the hired Frank and his MBS team are shocked and baffled by what they find the lobby is empty the wreckage of the walkways and the crucial evidence it contains have disappeared scientists flowed in from the National Bureau of Standards or MVS to investigate the Hyatt Regency skywalk collapse of hit a problem the walkway wreckage has gone the building's owners have taken it away for private analysis the lead investigator dr. Edward Franck chief of the bureau's structures division it's a massive flood were seeking all the debris has been we have not had a chance to see that we were shocked to have it removed and very disappointed Frank immediately petitions the Circuit Court of Jackson County for access to the wreckage which lies in a warehouse downtown if the Court denies the MBS request its independent investigation of the higher disaster is dead in the water the NBS team starts to examine eyewitness accounts for clues to the cause of the collapse many say that the Hyatts walkways were overcrowded that evening they were encouraging people to dance in the walkways they just had used the entire lobby is a dance floor which everybody was doing some experts say that people who dancing on the walkways may have put them under unforeseen stress all of a sudden areas that women for people walking from the elevator to a restaurant became dance floors and I think that's absolutely masked Pat Foley Hyatt Hotels president rebuts the claims that the walkways were overloaded the cat watcher designed the whole people shoulder to shoulder as many as you can jam on there NBS investigators examine kansas city's building codes they find the codes require public structures to be capable of carrying a load of 488 kilograms per square meter the first and third floor walkways should have been strong enough to carry at least 1280 people but no one knows exactly how many people had held that evening then NBS investigators get a break they learn of news reporter mike Mahoney's unique footage of the tea dance on the night of the disaster investigators pore over the footage they discovered that several of Mahoney shots focus on the famous sky walks it's like being given that information on a silver platter it was very and very very useful investigators work out that at the time of the collapse there were 40 people on the first floor walkway and 23 on the third floor walkway 63 in total they calculate that 63 people would only exert a load of 83 kilograms per square meter a fraction of the possible maximum load the number of people alone is clearly not enough to overload the walkway but could just 63 people still trigger disaster if enough of them were dancing on the walkways in 1940 news cameras captured the Tacoma Narrows Bridge tearing itself apart high winds created a violent swaying motion in the structure ultimately causing the bridge to collapse it's an extreme example of what engineers call harmonic vibration now the NBS asks could people swaying on the Hyatt walkway have created a similar effect experts know that all structures however solid vibrate imperceptibly at their own individual frequency if the people on the walkway were moving at the same frequency it could cause harmonic vibration that would set up a wave motion in the walkway that could deform the structure and ultimately cause it to fail to determine if harmonic vibration did cause the collapse the NBS team needs to establish the natural frequency of the walkways and the treading frequency of people they carried the tempo at which they were dancing or swaying to the music investigators learned that the band was playing a popular foxtrot at the time of the collapse when they analyzed the tune they discover it has at reading frequency a 1.1 Hertz or beats per second they compared it to the natural frequency of the surviving identical second floor walkway they discover that its natural frequency is 7 point 1 Hertz more than 6 times faster since the two frequencies are different harmonic vibration cannot be a factor in the disaster it's a dead end the NBS investigation stalls meanwhile engineer Wayne liscus unofficial investigation for the Kansas City Star gets a shot in the arm the hired building plans are now back at City Hall after cataloging he hopes they might hold some clue to the walkways collapse but what he finds in City Hall comes as a bombshell I was shocked at that point in time it literally only took seconds to realize that what was on the plans and what was built in the field were not the same thing the design plans filed by Jack gillum's engineering firm GCE show the first and third floor walkways hanging from the ceiling by a series of fourteen meter long hanger rods but lishka knows from his visit to the Hyatt that this is not how the walkways were actually built the rods still hanging from the ceiling was simply not long enough to reach the lower walkway a second set of rods bolted into the upper walkway must have carried its twin below he's already deduced that the structure failed at the point where the upper walkway was connected to the ceiling rods now he's beginning to understand why according to the plans this critical connection point was only meant to bear the weight of the upper walkway in the built structure it carries the weight of the lower walkway as well twice its intended load lishka needs to know did engineer Jack Gilliam changed the connection point design to take account of this extra load hours later the newly developed photographs of the walkway wreckage give him his answer they clearly show that several of the upper walkway connection points have dramatically failed three cross beams form the walkways basic structure at the connection point the hanger rods pass through the end of each beam or channel and are secured by a nuts underneath it start the obvious talisha why this connection point design was not up to the task these are basically two eight-inch channels similar to ones that were used in the Skywalk normally if you wanted to make a walkway out of two channels what they would have done is turned them back to back and taken the rod and put it in between on the Hyatt what they did is they took two channels and they turned them toe-to-toe and then they welded them to form a box beam welding the two pieces together makes it very weak right right through here well did box beans were adequate to provide the walkways basic framework but using them to form the connection point poses a serious problem here they must bear the entire load of both walkways but the nature of their structure transfers these huge forces to the beams weakest and thinnest points its walls lishka believes the connection point design was a recipe for disaster putting two channels toe to toes or is a ludicrous way to do it it was then and in his mouth lishka publishes his findings in the Kansas City Star if he's right then the collapse was not caused by faulty materials but by bad design but without access to the walkways themselves it remains no more than an intriguing theory then twelve days after the collapse the Circuit Court of Jackson County issues a crucial judgment it grants the NBS investigation team access to the remains of the walkways locked up in a Kansas City warehouse the investigators first priority to confirm where the walkways gave way amid the wreckage of the upper walkway they unearth all six of its critical connection points and make a disturbing discovery on each of them the welds on the box beam have folded inwards and upwards allowing the hanger rod to pull right through one box beam named 9ue shows signs of longer term damage than the others suggesting it gave way first it looks as though lishka was right the box beam design of the connection points was the walkways Achilles heel well just looking at the box beams you know you have to shake your head and say I sure wouldn't do it that way both Michigan and Frank think a failure in the Box beam connections is the cause of the disaster but unlike lishka Frank can put the theory to the test in the national engineering laboratory in Gaithersburg Maryland investigators attach steel box beams to hanger odds to make two exact replicas of the connection point they weigh every scrap of walkway debris and calculate that the total load on the connection was eight thousand one hundred and fifty kilograms over eight tons first they want to find out if the critical connection point was able to take the weight of the walkways without people the scientists subject the first replica to a constant eight tonnes of load for seconds in there's no change 20 seconds in they detect movement after 52 seconds it stops under the weight of walkways alone the walls of the beams start to bow but the connection does not give way but investigators know that there were 63 people on the walkways when they fell they estimate that this would add an extra ton bringing the total load to just over nine tons they repeat the experiment with a second identical connection this time they'll gradually add the extra weight to observe exactly what happens to the connection points at eight thousand and seventy kilograms the side walls distort further and the base starts to give way at eight thousand 160 kilograms the well gives way with a crack then at 8255 kilograms it fails completely the base of the connection the points bearing the greatest stress simply folds like cardboard the bolts attaching the walkway to its hanger oddly rips clean through under a steady mechanically exerted force the connection actually gives way some eight hundred and fifteen kilograms short of the estimated load the NBS conclusion is clear-cut and deeply shocking the third floor walkway connections were nowhere near strong enough to carry the weight of two walkways and people in fact they were so weak they had just one third of the load capacity required by Kansas City building codes from the day that they were put up they were a disaster waiting to happen the investigation takes ten months it reveals in chilling detail exactly what caused two walkways to tear loose from their supports high above a crowded dance floor leaving 114 Friday night revelers seconds from disaster seven pm five minutes to disaster the Hyatts Friday night tea dance buzzes with 1500 partygoers dozens of people flock on to the third floor walkway to escape the throng but beneath their feet the walkways six connection points struggle to carry the nine ton load but the walkways eastern end the connection point at the end of box beam 9ue has been gradually deforming for 16 months beneath the walkways people are totally unaware of the danger overhead 704 p.m. one minute to disaster Shirley and Walter True Blood join the crowd on the first floor walkway seconds later the base of box beam 9u heath buckles as it swelled snap people hear the popping from up to 30 meters away as the base of the beam folds behavior on RIT's free as the restraining nut smashes into the top of the beam above with a sharp crack the walkways jolt down sharply two seconds later disaster strikes box beam 9ue fails the five remaining connections on the third instantaneously unzip the third floor walkway plummets down at over 15 m/s 65 tons of concrete and steel crashes to the lobby floor in just 1.6 seconds a fatal flaw in the construction of the walkways is responsible for the deaths of a hundred and fourteen people the job of the NBS team was solely to explain the technical reasons for the collapse but the victims of the tragedy still want answers to the wider questions how could a public structure be built without anyone realizing it was not up to the job and who was to blame for the walkways fatal flaw the full story would emerge in a series of sensational court cases that took place in the wake of the disaster what they revealed would shock America and transform the way buildings are built and designed in the u.s. forever official investigators have revealed that the Kansas City Hyatt skywalks collapsed because the way they were connected to hanging rods was fatally flawed the critical connection points had just one third of the load capacity required the spotlight now falls on Jack Gilliam head of engineering firm GCE which designed the Hyatt in the wake of the collapse the American Society of Civil Engineers or ASCE and the Missouri State Board investigate gillum's role it emerges that it was the Hyatt architects who requested box beams for the walkways their motives were aesthetic box beams are the easiest type of beam to conceal with plasterboard but as chief engineer it was gillum's job to ensure that all aspects of the walkway was structurally sound so what went wrong Jack Gilliam tells investigators that one year into the hired build his firm GCE sent drawings of the walkway and its connection points to the fabricator Haven steel Haven steel says that the single hanger rod design is too hard to build and proposes two sets of rods instead one month later GCE gives the new walkway design its stamp of approval investigators are mystified gillum's concept for the connection point is flawed from the start and the new design doubles the load it will carry but at no stage does GCE attempt to rectify the problem why wasn't the mistakes by now Gilliam makes a staggering admission nobody at GCE ran any calculations on the strength of the walkway connections he maintains that it's custom and practice in Missouri for the fabricator to do the calculations while Haven steel insist that it's the engineers job to check the design and investigators discover that Gilliam had another opportunity to avert catastrophe when part of the atrium ceiling collapsed during the build gillum's firm did check connections in the atrium but nobody checked the walkway connections if they had it's almost certain the problem would have come to light the ASCE suspends gilliam after five years of litigation the Missouri State Board holds GCE responsible for the collapse and revokes gillum's license to practice in the state of Missouri Gilliam believes that his firm GCE behaved correctly but accepts that the buck stops with the engineer of record and takes ultimate responsibility for the mistake the Kansas City Star won a Pulitzer Prize for Wayne lish cos reports on the hyatt sky walk collapse lishka still works as an engineer in Kansas City McWilliams spent two months in intensive care and endured many months more of painful rehabilitation but on the opening day of the duck hunting season I made it my physical therapist carried me on his back through the marsh got me to the to the duck blind opening day despite suffering a broken back and having both legs torn out of their sockets mark made a complete recovery Walter and Shelley True Blood also recovered from their serious injuries they're still keen dancers the hired skywalks disaster transformed engineering safety in the United States in the wake of the tragedy Kansas City completely overhauled its building regulations requiring that all load-bearing calculations be checked by a city appointed engineer and the American Society of Civil Engineers rewrote its rules to send a clear message to structural engineers you are responsible for the plans that carry your stamp today the Kansas City Hyatt has been transformed it no longer has suspended walkways in their place stands a single span supported by sturdy columns aimed at instilling a renewed sense of safety and security and those who pass through the now historic site

Info

Channel: Mega Disasters

Views: 533,056

Rating: 4.6867795 out of 5

Keywords: Mega, Disasters, Skywalk, Collapse

Id: 5gAYEksx9a8

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 45min 53sec (2753 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2016

Reddit Comments

Holy crap. One of the firefighters was my mom’s old neighbor. I thought he was a good guy for looking after her and shoveling snow before i could get there. Damn

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/skyydog 📅︎︎ May 17 2019 🗫︎ replies

My great aunt walked out the front door about 10 seconds before it happened. 5 minutes earlier and she would have been on the sky walk.

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/TheBurningBeard 📅︎︎ May 17 2019 🗫︎ replies

i remember learning about this in engineering ethics, the negligence was crazy

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/p1zzaslice 📅︎︎ May 17 2019 🗫︎ replies

I walk through there every day doing my exercise. I work in one of the offices nearby.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/FearGunner 📅︎︎ May 17 2019 🗫︎ replies

My mom's friend was in that. Got her ankle all busted up. Pretty sure she eventually got a solid settlement from it but still, that would be traumatic as fuck.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/reelznfeelz 📅︎︎ May 18 2019 🗫︎ replies