Gravity sucks

November 10, 2010 3:51 PM

A 275 tower slated for demolition ... falls the wrong way. The former Ohio Edison Mad River Power Plant’s 275-foot tower was demolished, but fell the wrong way, snapping power lines and destroying buildings. No one was hurt. But the MSNBC video shows that maybe Take Your Daughter to Blow Up the Tower at Work Day was a bad idea.
posted by Cool Papa Bell (74 comments total)

275-foot tower, that is.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:51 PM on November 10, 2010

The engineer responsible responds.
posted by vectr at 3:54 PM on November 10, 2010 [11 favorites]

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
posted by crayz at 3:55 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Inside job, I tell you.
posted by vidur at 3:56 PM on November 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

I like how the little girl was the first one to realize what was going on and get the hell out of there.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:56 PM on November 10, 2010 [22 favorites]

"Blasted tower falls the wrong way in Ohio". Sublime.
posted by boo_radley at 3:57 PM on November 10, 2010 [7 favorites]

The jokes are great and all, but as someone who works around things that could kill you pretty frequently, that is a pretty scary video. I'm glad those powerlines didn't come down on those people.
posted by Big_B at 3:59 PM on November 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

Holy crap. At the very end, you hear one last charge go off WAY too late. Someone's in deep doodoo.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 4:00 PM on November 10, 2010

That could have been realllly bad.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:00 PM on November 10, 2010

Yeah, seeing the powerlines flailing like that was terrifying. Even without power flowing through them, the whip-force would be unbelievable.
posted by fake at 4:00 PM on November 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

Blasted tower! Blasted moose and squirrel!
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 4:06 PM on November 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm thinking that the only thing that kept that from being a major tragedy is the stack killed the power before the lines fell.
posted by bitmage at 4:08 PM on November 10, 2010

With all the yelling it was hard to hear the obligatory slide guitar noise when the smokestack hit the lines.
posted by crapmatic at 4:12 PM on November 10, 2010 [13 favorites]

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
posted by GuyZero at 4:14 PM on November 10, 2010 [6 favorites]

Some workplace mistakes are more noticeable than others.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:20 PM on November 10, 2010 [10 favorites]

My first thought upon watching the tower drop onto the power station: "oooh, that is going to be expensive". Second thought: "why the hell do I see secondary explosions from the powerline transformers and equipment?"
Seriously, if you are going to detonate building demolition charges not twenty feet away from a high power transformation/switching/whatever station, why does it not get turned off? I mean, at least for the duration of the actual blast? Is there really not enough redundancy in the network to cover for this?

I'm risk-averse in the extreme, and if I had to supervise any such explosion I'd draw a circle the height of the tower around its foundation on the map, point to it and tell everyone to move everything that cannot withstand the force of a building dropping on it outside of this circle...
posted by PontifexPrimus at 4:20 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not a big deal. You can just jump that in the airboat.
posted by brundlefly at 4:25 PM on November 10, 2010 [12 favorites]

So very scary... so very cool.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:30 PM on November 10, 2010

So... no bonus then?
posted by PenDevil at 4:33 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Left and right are just arbitrary directions. Who is to say which of my hands is the right one? Not the wealthy old money patriarchy and their socialist banks, that's for sure. Keep fighting the good fight, demolition experts. Keep fighting the good fight.
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:36 PM on November 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

> So... no bonus then?

I don't see why not. Wall Street's still getting paid, and those guys wrecked a lot more than "several pieces of power equipment."
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:40 PM on November 10, 2010

so, was it a rocket or an airplane?
posted by artof.mulata at 4:47 PM on November 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

Not a big deal. You can just jump that in the airboat.

Go really fast, and you can scoot under it, but watch out for the Barnacles under the rickety wooden bridge.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:53 PM on November 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

"Your Honour, members of the jury, you will hear my friend argue before this Court that the tower fell the wrong way. The 'wrong way'. The 'wrong way'. Think about that phrase for a moment. The defence will prove that the tower did not fall the 'wrong way'. The defence will prove that the tower fell down, which was the 'right way' for it to fall."
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:54 PM on November 10, 2010 [17 favorites]

This being Springfield, we'll be seeing this referenced in the next season of The Simpsons.
posted by Kinbote at 4:55 PM on November 10, 2010

11/10 was an inside job.
posted by vverse23 at 5:13 PM on November 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

Marshall Gorby is one hell of a cameraman to track that falling tower while live power lines fell all around him.

Scary!
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 5:14 PM on November 10, 2010

After watching this five or six times and finding new things to be fascinated with each time, I've finally decided what my favorite is: watching the backs of the three people surrounding the demolition trigger. They're frozen. The instant after the little girl starts to run, they take a little half-step back, still staring at the tower. They know that the tower is falling the wrong way, that something is happening that shouldn't be happening, but they don't know how to integrate that idea into the regular programming of their brains. Contrary to every falling thing they've ever seen in their lives, they're stuck expecting (half-expecting, not really expecting, expecting SOMETHING surely but not this) the tower to halt and reverse direction. Their senses are in direct conflict with the entirety of their experience and memory. I feel like I could successfully sketch the look on their faces.
posted by penduluum at 5:21 PM on November 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

Someone set them up the bomb.
sorry
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:24 PM on November 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

Ha, I grew up outside of Springfield, and this is by far the coolest thing I can remember happening to the city. If this is the smokestack I think it is (way to go local news for entirely failing to give a location), there were not really too many good directions for it to fall. You can drop it on the power plant, in the river, on the electrical, or on the empty sliver to the northeast.

Some other photos and video of the fall.
posted by gueneverey at 5:37 PM on November 10, 2010

great. not only have we forgotten how to get things done, we can't even knock the old shit over any more.
posted by victors at 5:41 PM on November 10, 2010 [5 favorites]

If someboday was trying to represent the Bush presidency via smokestack demolition, mission accomplished.
posted by punkfloyd at 5:45 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

So very scary... so very cool.
...
That could have been realllly bad.

Have you ever been to a demolition? They don't just let people stand wherever they want, generally everyone is evacuated from the radus where they could be hurt if anything goes wrong.
posted by delmoi at 6:03 PM on November 10, 2010

The little girl, in realizing there's a problem also does one other interesting thing. She moves away, and then pauses to check on the well being of the others, before running in the right direction.
posted by niccolo at 6:05 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

However, the implosion of the Royal Canberra Hospital was a terrible failure. The main building did not fully disintegrate and had to be later manually demolished.

But far worse, the explosion was not contained on the site and large pieces of debris were projected towards spectators situated 500 metres away on the opposite side of the Lake, in a location that nobody considered unsafe or inappropriate. A twelve year old girl, Katie Bender, was killed instantly, and nine other people were injured. Large fragments of masonry and metal were found 650 metres from the demolition site.

Unfortunately I can't find any footage on Youtube etc, but it's absolutely insane. There were heaps of kayakers and canoeists watching and it looked like something out of Saving Private Ryan. Amazing that no spectators on the lake were killed.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:36 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

They know that the tower is falling the wrong way, that something is happening that shouldn't be happening, but they don't know how to integrate that idea into the regular programming of their brains.

This is a little surprising to me. OSHA makes a big deal out of the proper method for felling a tree, for pete's sake. You're supposed to be prepared with an escape route.

I suppose, with the little girl and all, they imagined they were outside the radius of danger, but obviously everyone was too close to those live power lines. That's the big, scary mistake here. The lines can be rebuilt, the shed was backup generators, the overall site is apparently largely disused -- property damage. But why were those people there? Somebody did not think things through.
posted by dhartung at 6:44 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

After watching this five or six times and finding new things to be fascinated with each time, I've finally decided what my favorite is:

I like how the four are huddled around, and in unison they stand upright and stare at the tower. You know that's exactly when they've hit the demolition button.

[tumbleweeds]

Then this pathetic plume of smoke finally appears!

I've often wondered if the people flicking the switch [often politicians or competition winners] are actually flicking a dummy switch, and the real demolition man is somewhere else, flicking the correct switch, and trying to do it at approximately the same time.

DISCLAIMER: I am at the library so haven't watched this with sound.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:48 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

And this is why you use a tripod, people.
posted by mike_bling at 6:55 PM on November 10, 2010 [5 favorites]

Even without power flowing through them, the whip-force would be unbelievable.

How literal is the "high tension" in "high tension power lines"?
posted by DU at 6:58 PM on November 10, 2010

DU: example.
posted by kiltedtaco at 7:07 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately I can't find any footage on Youtube etc, but it's absolutely insane.

Here's an OK still picture. You can see some kayakers and some splashes where large bits of concrete have hit the water near them. The article said plenty of debris cleared the lake, so I'm guessing the dead girl would have been sitting near the rest of the people pictured.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:09 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Fucking idiots from Ohio, They never know where they up to, To the Left, To the right, In the middle... They deserve to be who they are... don't have a line = bring bad consequences... Very soon with the new congress you'll be crying again... well deserved!!
posted by CRESTA at 8:08 PM on November 10, 2010

How literal is the "high tension" in "high tension power lines"?

I always thought tension in that context referred to the voltage rather than the physical tension on the wires. In many languages the word for voltage is derived from the word for tension, and high tension (HT) is used to mean high voltage in vacuum tube applications.

Anyway, this 2006 patent application on a "Method for controlling sagging of a power transmission cable" mentions an example of a cable under 9000lbs of tension. This 3M paper on testing a suspension assembly and conductor for powerlines describes a test of a 30m span of conductor held under 4,685lbs of tension. So I'm guessing thousands of pounds is typical.

I'm afraid I don't have an intuitive sense of just how much tension that is, but it sounds like a lot.
posted by jedicus at 8:15 PM on November 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

I've often wondered if the people flicking the switch [often politicians or competition winners] are actually flicking a dummy switch, and the real demolition man is somewhere else, flicking the correct switch, and trying to do it at approximately the same time.

Probably. We used to very occasionally blow stuff up at work and you are absolutely NOT allowed to push the button unless you're the certified explosives engineer/ expert who's name is all over the plans. Even if you're the governor as it turns out.
posted by fshgrl at 9:04 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Implosion World
posted by hortense at 11:57 PM on November 10, 2010

Am I the only person disgusted that, more than 45 comments in, nobody has pointed out that when a man and his children oversee the cackhanded destruction of a power plant in Springfield that it must be the work of Homer Simpson?
posted by MuffinMan at 2:08 AM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

MuffinMan: "Am I the only person disgusted that, more than 45 comments in, nobody has pointed out that when a man and his children oversee the cackhanded destruction of a power plant in Springfield that it must be the work of Homer Simpson"

vectr: "The engineer responsible responds. "
posted by idiopath at 3:17 AM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Fred Dibnah would never have let that happen.
posted by DZ-015 at 4:13 AM on November 11, 2010

We beat the bitches. The judge told them to slurp shit and die. I put a Norwegian in the boiler room. Masterful! And then, when that blew ... it set off a pack of thermals I stuck upstairs. Some days it's great to be alive.
posted by adipocere at 4:27 AM on November 11, 2010 [2 favorites]

jedicus: I always thought tension in that context referred to the voltage rather than the physical tension on the wires. In many languages the word for voltage is derived from the word for tension, and high tension (HT) is used to mean high voltage in vacuum tube applications.

Indeed. "Tension" is an archaic term for voltage. For example, the often rather loose and floppy wires that carry the high voltage to the back of a CRT used to be called the "EHT" ("extra-high tension") wires.

Technically, I suppose, the word "tension" is analogous to "current" in that it's the name of the property, not just the unit of measure. Tension is to voltage as current is to amperage.
posted by kcds at 4:50 AM on November 11, 2010

I am totally confused. The only thing the "video" does for me is show a picture of the falling tower, and display a block of text describing the incident, then invite me to re-play. WTF?
posted by Goofyy at 5:06 AM on November 11, 2010

Ah, needed to restart my browser.
posted by Goofyy at 5:15 AM on November 11, 2010

DU: "How literal is the "high tension" in "high tension power lines"?"
kiltedtaco: "DU: example"

Let me explain that picture for those interested:

I spent several years working as a CATV (cable tv) lineman. The picture linked there, of the car hanging off of the "power lines", is in fact hanging off of what appear to be (given the lack of equipment, the drip loop at the pole, and no expansion loops) telephone lines (although they could be fiber, or CATV. The pictures not clear enough for me to determine definitely what utilities they are, just that they are utility lines). The power lines in that picture are obvious - to and from the transformer, above the utility lines at the top of the pole. In the states I've worked in, power has had to be (by regulation) located a minimum of 40" above the highest utility line.

The car in that photo is being supported by what is known in the industry as strand - a braided, steel cable that is usually 3/8" in diameter, and is decidedly not high tension - the amount of slack in strand varies depending on the span, or distance between the poles it is attached to.
I've both run new strand and removed (that is, cut) old strand before - in almost all cases, it merely falls straight down to the ground when cut, and I never observed any notable whip effect from it.

Strand *is* incredibly strong - I've seen (and used) strand as towing cable to pull bucket trucks out of ditches, yards, and other places they arguably shouldn't have been but went anyway (a practice we always referred to as 'bajaing'). I have absolutely no problem believing that properly attached strand could support the weight of an average automobile more-or-less indefinitely.

I cannot speak specifically to the tension present in residential power lines, but anecdotally they're often very slack - it was not uncommon for me to be up a telephone pole in some backyard, look down the span, and see the power line (that is supposed to be 40" higher than I am, minimum) drooped down and actually laying across the line I'm working on.

The object lesson here is this: If you look up at any telephone pole, the lower lines are almost always utility lines and not power lines. Power lines are kept at the tops of the poles.

And of course, all of that is different than the lines that came down in the video - which I have no experience with whatsoever and thus could easily believe are high tension.
posted by namewithoutwords at 5:50 AM on November 11, 2010 [4 favorites]

I think any high tension must be just to counteract the weight of the cable between the poles, which I wouldn't expect to be more than a few thousand pounds.

In any case, Mythbusters already proved that high actual-tension wires do not have the massive whiplash usually attributed to them. Painful, yes; cut your body in half, no.
posted by DU at 6:15 AM on November 11, 2010

> a practice we always referred to as 'bajaing'

Is that BAY-juh-ing or BADGE-uh-ing? Or something else? Odd word.
posted by languagehat at 6:22 AM on November 11, 2010

The dilemma in blasting: you are trying to do precision work against something that was built decades or centuries ago of unknown quality. Underbuilt or overbuilt, bother are hard to deal with. Often they will actually treat a tower like this like a tree, and cut a notch or section out of one side so that at least then they know for certain what the weak side is, and then they can work with it.
posted by smackfu at 6:35 AM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is that BAY-juh-ing or BADGE-uh-ing? Or something else? Odd word.

My guess is BAH-hah-ing. As in the Baja 500, named for Baja California.
posted by Plutor at 6:38 AM on November 11, 2010

Cat Pie Hurts: Holy crap. At the very end, you hear one last charge go off WAY too late.

I believe that was a transformer. In the video from the other viewpoint, you can see the flash from that late explosion in the smoke and dust.
posted by moonbiter at 7:16 AM on November 11, 2010

> My guess is BAH-hah-ing. As in the Baja 500, named for Baja California.

OK, thanks, that makes sense.
posted by languagehat at 7:21 AM on November 11, 2010

My favorite part was when the tower fell down.
posted by dgran at 7:40 AM on November 11, 2010

RUN, Fools! It's like a scene out of the movies. I will never get why people stand there. When they were replaying all the nine eleven footage a few months ago, I was re-shocked at all the people standing 50 feet away from a towering mass on fire, having to be told to disperse. Run fool!
posted by cashman at 7:41 AM on November 11, 2010

Is that BAY-juh-ing or BADGE-uh-ing? Or something else? Odd word.

Ba-Ha-Ing, as Plutor correctly points out. Any time we took our bucket trucks (what you may know as cherry pickers, though nobody ever calls them that) off of pavement, that was 'bajaing'.
Something that was officially NOT ALLOWED, but unofficially done ALL THE DAMN TIME.
posted by namewithoutwords at 8:13 AM on November 11, 2010

Guarantee those responsible are graduates of "THE Ohio State University"

GO BLUE!!!
posted by spicynuts at 9:01 AM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

I will never get why people stand there. ... Run fool!

I once heard an anecdote -- I don't know its veracity -- about squirrels and cars. Why do so many squirrels and deer get hit by cars? Squirrels are fast and nimble. Deer have good eyesight and run away from the slightest provocation. Cars generally drive in straight lines and can be seen and heard coming from a distance. It seems counter-intuitive that a deer or a squirrel would ever be hit by a car, no matter how fast the car was moving. Yet they do.

The reason offered was that nothing in nature moves like a car. Nothing that big goes that fast in a straight line. It's difficult for an animal to simply comprehend the threat.

Hence the "run fool" reaction. The tower is falling. Is it really? What does that mean? I can't comprehend the danger. Humans are the proverbial deer in the headlights.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:18 AM on November 11, 2010 [3 favorites]

The reason offered was that nothing in nature moves like a car. Nothing that big goes that fast in a straight line. It's difficult for an animal to simply comprehend the threat.

Last week a squirrel ran under my bike. He was darting across the road and figured he could squeeze between my wheels as I went by.

And he was wrong.

Although when I stopped to look he was gone so I guess he didn't get hurt that bad. But I definitely felt him get hit by my rear wheel.

At any rate, WTF squirrel? What the hell were you thinking?
posted by GuyZero at 9:48 AM on November 11, 2010

A couple years ago, there was an interesting book published: The Unthinkable: Who Survives Disasters and Why. The author interviewed lots of people, did lots of research, looking into patterns of human behavior to figure out things like: why did people stay at their desks when the planes hit the WTC. Her research showed that quick-witted survival action was the anomaly. It's really quite interesting to read. Hysteria is apparently not all that common, she says in fact, that people tend to stay calm and helpful to others, that our brains are taking in a lot of information and generally waiting for instructions.

The Red Cross and FEMA use these concepts as the basis for their disaster risk reduction programs and emergency preparedness instruction. Disaster-planning--that is, imagining exactly what you'd do in an emergency, as well as physically running through the drills of what you'd do in the emergency--significantly reduces your risk in a disaster. Most people can't form the plan on the spot, so they tend to stand still until someone yells at them what to do.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:08 AM on November 11, 2010 [3 favorites]

Everything I know about demolishing building I learned from Las Vegas, where pretty much everything is rigged to fall down, not over.

Is it common to even try to make something this tall fall over, rather than imploding it? And how exactly would direction be controlled? Watching the video (particularly the second one) it looks like the whole damn thing drops several feet before it starts to fall, which is pretty much how you would expect a totally uncontrolled fall to begin.

Any demo experts want to clue me in?
posted by coolguymichael at 10:25 AM on November 11, 2010

That's my home town. I'm so very proud.
posted by theora55 at 10:27 AM on November 11, 2010

Is it common to even try to make something this tall fall over, rather than imploding it?

When you implode something, you're removing its internal supports. For example, if you remove the supports of the roof above you, the roof will fall down. The WTC fell down because supports were removed, and the floors above pancaked down upon the floors below (which caused those supports to fail, and so on, and so on).

STFU, truthers

But this tower had no internal supports dividing one section from another. At least not ones similar to a building with multiple "floors." It was, essentially, a tube. Or analogous to a tree. Take the base out, and it topples straight over in a desired direction.

Usually, that is. ;-)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:38 AM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is it common to even try to make something this tall fall over, rather than imploding it?

Seems standard, going by the youtube videos of smokestack demolitions. Successful ones are pretty awesome. Imploding (or an approach similar to a traditional implosion) would require using cranes to drill and place rings of explosives around the upper parts, and then covering that with heavy blasting cloth to prevent debris from getting rocketed all over. Not worth it when your goal is to have rubble on the ground, which gravity will take care of just fine if you topple it.
posted by smackfu at 10:42 AM on November 11, 2010

jedicus writes "Anyway, this 2006 patent application on a 'Method for controlling sagging of a power transmission cable' mentions an example of a cable under 9000lbs of tension. This 3M paper on testing a suspension assembly and conductor for powerlines describes a test of a 30m span of conductor held under 4,685lbs of tension. So I'm guessing thousands of pounds is typical.

"I'm afraid I don't have an intuitive sense of just how much tension that is, but it sounds like a lot."

If those numbers are typical then the lines could easily bash your head in. I've seen an attachment point break free under less than 8000lbs of tension and make it's way clean through the tailgate; front of the box; back of the cab; firewall (taking out a chunk of the heater core) before being stopped by an air tank strapped to the fender of a 68 Dodge 4X4. However maximum force is at the instant of breakage, a broken cable whipping through the air loses velocity fairly quickly.
posted by Mitheral at 11:41 AM on November 11, 2010

Here's another demolition gone wrong. This happened a few years ago in a town nearby, and the leaning tower stayed up for a couple of weeks.
posted by rocket88 at 11:49 AM on November 11, 2010

Might I also interest you in this exploding whale?
posted by bicyclefish at 11:53 AM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

See also.
posted by chugg at 1:13 PM on November 11, 2010