Original subtitles

[Narrator] Construction. Heavy machinery.

Tight schedules. Millions at stake.

What could go wrong? Everything.

Whether it's faulty equipment, poor design, human error...

or just bad luck...

...these are...

Construction fails.

In this episode...

High-rises Tight spaces.

Higher stakes...

When big cranes fail...

...they make one big mess.

Monster winds can peel off a roof in seconds.

Can new construction techniques save us

from losing our tops?

Escalators. Great for moving people.

Not great when they move a lot of people onto a lot of people.

Trucks carry lots of stuff.

Too bad so much ends up on the road...

...and in our cars.

Urban construction. High prices. Tight spaces.

There's nowhere to go but up.

Two types of cranes are essential when building

in the concrete jungle.

Whether fixed to the ground...

...or attached to a building,

the tower crane provides the best combination of height

and lifting capacity.

The crawler crane can squeeze into the tightest spaces.

And with minimal preparation, it can roll into position

and start lifting.

All cranes have three components:

the vertical mast, the horizontal boom...

And strength.

A typical tower crane can lift 18 metric tons.

That's 18,000 kilograms.

A crane can lift a lot...

But all that lifting power weighs a lot.

And when a crane meets its limit,

watch out below.

Seattle, Washington.

April 2019

In the city's thriving tech district,

construction is underway on a new six story Google campus.

A tower crane dropped from the sky,

destroying a building and crushing cars.

Manhattan, New York February 2016

A freezing day in the heart of the Big Apple.

A crawler crane is hoisting an air conditioning unit

and generators onto the roof

of a telecommunications building.

A worker in a nearby office records the giant machine

in operation.

[Voice] OK we're on the 30th floor now.

It's almost even with us.

There it goes, he's moving fast now.

He's dropping it really quick now.

[bleeps]

That thing looks like it's going to fall.

[bleeps]

It's falling, it's falling.

Oh it broke...

[bleep]

The thing crashed!

[Narrator] Two cranes on two coasts...

What went wrong?

Was it a maintenance issue?

In the New York and Seattle incidents

both cranes had passed their safety inspections.

Was it the weather?

Even the safest crane can be undone by one variable...

...the wind.

Given the crane's lattice-frame structure,

you would think the wind would pass through it.

But there's enough exposed surface area at play

to be affected by a strong wind.

A tower crane is designed to withstand winds

up to 160 kmh.

But that's when they are in a position known

as weather vaning.

Like it sounds, during weather-vaning

the crane's boom is unlocked

and allowed to move with the wind...

Like this crane in Nova Scotia, Canada.

That's why accurate weather forecasts

are essential to safe crane operation.

In the United Kingdom, where winds are highly changeable,

the national weather service provides

a forecast specifically for crane operators.

A slight increase in wind speed

can have a significant effect on a crane.

And it can catch the crane's operators off guard.

And that's what happened in Manhattan.

The crawler crane tractor was dwarfed by its 50 metre mast.

And its 133 metre boom.

As the wind speed increased,

the operators hurried to lower the crane.

But the jib was lowered at an angle

that overwhelmed the crane's operational limits.

Investigators concluded that the operator

should have considered the forecasted winds

and lowered the crane the previous night.

The error was compounded when the boom and jib

were lowered too quickly, moving the crane

past its stability limit.

According to its safety manual, the crawler crane

was supposed to be secured when winds reached

more than 32 kilometres per hour.

But the winds grew too strong too quickly.

In Seattle, the wind was also to blame.

But so was human error.

Tower cranes are assembled and disassembled

in the same manner.

A second helper crane lowers the parts bit by bit.

The counter boom.

The boom.

The control cabin...

and then the tower itself.

Lock pins hold the tower pieces into place.

According to reports, workers disassembling

the construction crane had been too hasty

in removing the lock pins.

Gusting winds pushed the upper portion of the crane

from its loosened mooring.

The awesome hoisting power of the crane is balanced

by the incredible danger of massive machines in the sky.

In the aftermath of the Manhattan collapse,

this model of crawler crane was banned from city streets.

Lifting heavy weight is a heavy responsibility.

The truck is designed to carry stuff.

But sometimes their drivers will do anything

to unburden themselves.

They'll put on a seat belt and forget to do the same

for their cargo.

The Right Way.

Make sure cargo is evenly distributed and secured

for all road conditions.

The wrong way: for every action

there is an equivalent reaction...

And this will hurt if it lands on your toe.

And if you lean into your turns

you can make your deliveries

without having to get out of the truck.

The Right Way: Blocking cargo with fencing or gates

keeps freight like pipes and logs

from shifting during sudden stops.

So either this truck forgot to fence in that freight

or this SUV was just rear-ended by a giant porcupine.

Instead of honking his horn, this trucker

should've just yelled "Timber".

When his load jettisoned from the bed

it caused both a traffic jam and a log jam.

The Right Way: Use the proper vehicle

for the cargo you're carrying.

Or you could end up playing a losing game of pickup sticks.

This overloaded pickup seems to be doing fine -

until you realize someone was sitting in that chair

a couple of klicks back.

The Right way: tailgates and tarps

must be securely fastened to keep the load intact.

Because at high speeds light objects like cardboard

can fly off the truck and distract other drivers.

Okay, that's probably not cardboard.

And whatever flew off this truck

is definitely not cardboard.

An investigation revealed the loose object

was in fact a clothes iron.

This hard right turn was harder than the driver thought.

When the truck flipped, that loose tarp did nothing

except convert that motorcycle into a dirt bike.

This reckless trucker tries to pass on the right

and ends up in the wrong, causing a major pileup.

Luckily nobody was hurt and the bricks

can still be put to good use,

building a tiny windowless room

where the driver will spend the next 14 months.

But why stop at all?

If you're running late just gear down

and hit the "eject" button.

Here's the future of shipping:

It saves on fuel emissions

by foregoing the truck entirely

and simply delivering itself.

But if you are shipping by truck,

next time you hit the road, buckle up.

And that includes your cargo.

So whatever you're hauling makes it to the destination

without taking a dangerous detour.

Or you could lose way more than your load.

It was born on the warm waters of the Pacific ocean

in September 2018.

Fuelled by heat and wind, the tropical storm

grew into a monster...

A category 5 typhoon.

They called it Mangkhut.

Forty kilometres wide, the superstorm ravaged

the Philippines, Guam and southern China,

Battering cities...

...flattening buildings...

...and washing away entire neighbourhoods.

By the time Mangkhut had worn itself out,

135 lives were lost.

Millions were evacuated from their homes.

And billions in infrastructure was destroyed.

The clean-up after Mangkhut cost the Philippines

an estimated $660 million.

In China, the repair bill was over 9.6 billion.

While scientists understand

how violent winds like these are formed,

wind-resistant construction techniques have not kept pace.

In a classic gabled structure,

a strong wind surge will catch on the overhang

and rip the roof right off the building.

The science is simple.

The reality is terrifying.

No one is safe...

Not on the streets.

Nor even inside their own home.

With wind speeds exceeding 285 kilometres per hour,

a Category 5 typhoon like Mangkhut

is the most destructive.

These swirling sweeping arms of the storm slash again

and again and again.

The wind is relentless.

Windows are blown in...

...and blown out.

Siding is shredded.

Roofs are especially vulnerable.

Each year brings a new series

of seemingly ever-stronger storms.

So how can a house survive,

let alone protect the people living within it?

Architects have risen to the challenge.

Homes built with circular or octagonal floor plans

are more aerodynamic and can deflect the wind

instead of taking a direct hit.

Internal beams stabilize the outer walls

like spokes on a wheel

making the structure more resilient and wind resistant.

Even conventionally shaped buildings

can be made more wind-resistant.

Multi-sloped roofs deflect the wind better

than standard double sloped gabled roofs.

Rather than rely on nails,

roofs are secured to trusses with robust hurricane clips.

Windows can be protected with stormproof shutters.

Houses built on elevated posts,

sitting on an open foundation

are better protected from flooding.

No building is totally hurricane proof.

But new construction and retrofitted buildings

that use these designs and materials

have a fighting chance at surviving extreme weather.

Tropical storms are inevitable...

But the damage they can cause is not.

When the City of Prague opened a new metro station,

the designers forgot one important detail...

...the escalator.

The city hired a team of stair-climbing porters

to carry passengers and their stuff to the surface.

It was a remarkable construction fail.

Where would we be without the escalator?

It's a staircase that does the climbing for you.

They work indoors and outside...

At 688 metres, this sight-seeing escalator

in China is the world's longest.

It takes eighteen minutes to get from the bottom to the top.

The escalator is considered one of the most important

innovations in retail marketing...

...otherwise known as shopping.

Stairs take effort.

Elevators can't move as many people.

Escalators make every floor easier to reach for everybody...

...quickly and continuously.

An escalator can carry more than 10,000 people an hour,

making it an essential tool for rapid transit...

...although clearly not in Prague.

On the other hand, when an escalator fails,

it can have a devastating impact on anyone on it...

Whether you're at the top or the bottom...

Or in the middle.

Sometimes the incident is benign.

This woman's high heel was the victim.

Luckily, the escalator repairmen were on scene

to rescue her shoe.

Other incidents are terrifying.

The stairs literally opened up beneath this cleaner.

So what goes wrong?

The first moving staircase was a sit-down affair

called an "inclined elevator."

The machine we know as the escalator

was presented at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.

It was perfected by the Otis Elevator company

the name is a combination of elevator and scalae,

the Latin word for stairs.

It took awhile for it to take off as anything

more than an amusement.

But when it caught on, the escalator went viral.

Escalators became longer and faster...

And more powerful.

In fact, the thrust of an escalator

is as great as a jet plane at take off.

That's a lot of moving metal, moving at high speed.

And when it jams, things can get ugly.

It doesn't take much to make an escalator fail...

A single coin can cause thousands in damage.

But the scariest escalator fail must be the sudden reversal...

Like this one in Ningbo, China.

That's when the weight of the passengers on the steps

overwhelms the mechanism.

The entire stair system succumbs to gravity,

throwing passengers into a pile at the bottom.

According to reports, an auxiliary braking system

meant to prevent runaways might not have been turned on.

Escalators can be dangerous even when they don't malfunction.

All it takes is a human malfunction...

...like taking your suitcase onto the escalator

and then letting go.

Whether it's a shoe lace or a loose deck plate

that catches you,

the power of escalators

should never be underestimated.

They just keep moving us...

Even when we don't want to.

When the images of escalator nightmares went viral in China,

people began taking extra care on their exit strategies.

So maybe the good people of Prague were on to something.

Maybe the stairs are a better option.

Ship-building, an ancient craft.

But one aspect of ship-building remains unchanged...

...the construction takes place on land.

The trickiest part is getting the ship

from the place where it's built

to the place where it's meant to be...

In the float out launch...

The ship is constructed in dry dock.

The dry dock is filled with water.

And the ship is floated out into its habitat...

slowly...

Very slowly.

The other type of launch is quicker and more exciting.

The gravitational launch...

And the side launch...

Where the ship looks like it's going to flip.

There are other kinds of launches.

And they can be spectacular and stealthy at the same time.

Sometimes a launch doesn't require water.

Sometimes the trailer wants to stay with the boat.

Sometimes the truck does.

Sometimes the crane does too.

When the ship finally hits the water...

...its first wake can be a tsunami.

It just gets worse.

These floating monstrosities take up more than space...

They displace anything that's small and defenseless...

...like this pilot boat,

moored and minding its own business.

Sometimes a boat fails to launch.

A ship out of water is like a fish out of water.

But once a ship is on the water,

its momentum is unstoppable.

Especially if the engine is running,

and stuck in reverse,

and no one is aboard.

No matter the age or design of the vessel...

...the bigger the boat, the greater the momentum.

This poor boat got a smash in the stern...

And then a gash in the bow.

These people nearly got a burial at sea.

Whether it's launching,

driving...

...or docking...

...humans have a knack for ending up in water.

Perhaps we'd be better off

leaving the job to the experts...

...and let our best friends get us safely to shore.

♪ ♪