What's with all the crane collapses?

[Dover]

At last count,

2 in NYC
1 Houston
1 Oklahoma
1 Normal, Illinois

"Normal"? I call it abnormal and downright freaky.

And I'm probably even missing some from my list.

[Esra Star]

1. same as with the bridge collapse....

The quality of the structural engineering needs to improve.
The twin towers weren't supposed to collapse like a deck of cards either.

[yorgatron]

2. it's simple,they don't have enough inspections.

comes with deregulation.
they don't want the FDA to look at mad cow either.
or the SEC to keep an eye on Wall Street.
or any number of other things that the free market will take care of.
and if nobody wants to work on those hazardous cranes anymore they'll find someone from the 3rd world who's more desperate for a job than you are,and he'll get killed instead.
:grr::mad:

[tismyself]

6. about the towers

The way the towers collapsed was actually due to the design, probably mostly having to do with the elements designed to prevent lateral buckling forces.

But the cranes? Greed, plain and simple. It effects the materials, the engineering, the hourly wages... the entire thing.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[exothermic]

30. There are actually insane idiots who think there were explosives planted in them.

Well, DU is a large community and there will be crazy fucks in any large group. :shrug:

[Esra Star]

31. The "controlled explosions" theorists are just confusing

the windows blowing out because of air pressure with some sort of bomb.
If you look closely at the video you can see them blow as the virtual piston descends.

[exothermic]

32. Yes, you know that, I know that, and 99.999% of all engineers know that.

So we hear the vocal minority of nutballs. :eyes:

[truth2power]

34. Umm...crazy fuck, here...checking in....

See, that's the problem. First of all, I'm an old crone. Not much bothered, at this stage in my life, by people calling me names.

Yeah, yeah...I know. Put it in the third person plural "crazy fucks" (them), and you're not really calling-out a particular person. Ummm-kay.

This is predictable. It always has to be name-calling and ridicule whenever anyone raises the issue of 9/11. Makes one think that people who do that have nothing substantive to contribute. Just sayin'. :shrug:

[RC]

35. You get people like that in part because they do not teach critical thinking anymore.

They read their Popular Mechanics or Readers Digest and/or watch the 'liberal' network news and uncritically accept what they are told.

They can't seem to make the connections between the real terrorists and their actions.

[exothermic]

38. I was taught critical thinking long before most of the tinfoilers around here were

a gleam in the mailman's eye.
;-)

[RC]

39. Since you seem to buy the government's position on 9/11, facts to the contrary...

Do you buy the administration's multiple lies for invading Iraq and killing Saddam?
How about the polls saying Obama and McCain are running neck and neck?
Do you believe electronic voting machines are the way to fast honest elections results?
Karl Rove is just misunderstood.
Are you interested in buying a bridge kit currently in Minnesota? Good shape, except for a little rust.

[Captain Angry]

3. Totally a guess on my part.

With the tremendous amount of construction, I think a lot of companies might have bought old, potentially dangerous gear so they could get in on the action.

The companies that do this stuff all the time probably depreciate and sell their old cranes eventually. It wouldn't surprise me if we find that some of the cranes involved were very old, and had been repaired many times.

[Dover]

4. That sounds feasible...n/t

[tismyself]

11. totally off topic

I've been meaning to tell you that I like your hand images! Healer?

:hi:

[Dover]

19. Thanks...

Yes, healing hands.

[rucky]

16. My theory...

with a tremendous slowdown in construction, contractors are cutting back on skilled labor and hiring amateur crane operators who'll work for cheap.

[Snarkturian Clone]

20. Tremendous slowdown?

Skyscraper construction is still going very strong because these buildings were proposed when the market was good and are now in the middle of construction. Have you been to NYC lately? There's like 25 cranes in every direction.

[rucky]

29. Overall trends show a slowdown in residential and commercial.

But I don't get out to the big city that much.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. Or, all the good equipment is in Iraq. n/t

[Snarkturian Clone]

21. You're half right.

It's shoddy equipment but it's also the fact that so many skyscraper projects are going on right now that companies who don't work with cranes very often are now working with them all the time and aren't doing a very good job at it.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Get 'Em Up Fast...Get 'Em Up Cheap...

Many commercial buildings don't start going up until they have clients...and then the push is on to get the bulding done quick so it can start producing money for the owners. I have a relative involved in house building and he's long complained about how many corners are being cut in getting things built fast...using substandard, cheaper materials, overworked and broken equipment and shoddy workmanship...just as long as the building is done on time. In many cases, a construction company will be fined if they don't meet the targets, thus even more pressure to get 'er done. Some construction companies will risk an injury as that's cheaper to deal with than the loss by not meeting a dealine.

With the economy dying and a glut of both residential and commercial space, I suspect the Construction trade will have some lean years ahead. The Depression all but killed construction for nearly a decade...and I suspect what we're heading into will be a replay.

[tismyself]

8. amen to that

The house building is really scary. Around here, we have these instant neighborhoods in a spray can (you know, poof: here's a life style) and most of them are disasters waiting to happen. I've been in the field where the neighborhoods are say 60% complete, and already the exterior cladding is falling off, ridges and trusses are bowing and the list just goes on.

By "disaster" I mean that the lay of the land is flattened, the trees are mowed down, the creeks are fiddled with - wait, there's more - and the houses are being built with only the barest minimum distance between roof edges. With all these things in place, if a fire ever started, it would be a mess.

These damn things are really just tomorrow's slums.

[Dover]

24. Regardless of the economy, these days if what's builit is not sustainable, then it is

tomorrow's ruins. Many homes are not well built to begin with, and to not be sustainable energy wise and in terms of materials...well America may find itself surrounded by modern ruins.

[Snarkturian Clone]

25. Have you ever seen the Comcast Center on Philadelphia?

It's the world's tallest green building, that is until the American Commerce Center is built here (assuming NIMBY's don't stop it)
If all new skyscrapers were built to Comcast Center's standard the buildings would be useful for a much longer time.

[Dover]

27. Hmmm....no wasn't aware of that building. Thanks for the pic..n/t

[barbtries]

7. probably related to

the mine collapses, the bridge collapse, the collapse of civilization in the US - the bushies took out protections for anyone but the corporations and their stockholders. no inspections, no consequences for safety violations, nothing matters but the bottom line. people die unnecessarily but oh well, that's the cost of doing business.

i don't KNOW that. i definitely think that probably has everything to do with it.

[tismyself]

10. I second that

You know, I can't remember where off the top of my head, but not too long ago a building collapsed on the other side of the world and a hell of a lot of people died. The authorities there went around at some ungodly hour and snatched the architect and a few others out of bed and threw them in prison.

[Dover]

26. Well these collapses certainly do make fitting symbols of a collapsing civilization.

Reaching too high and building upon shoddy foundations. Icarus.

A collapsing infrastructure, the very foundations of our way of life, will fall and eventually change, hopefully for the better.

[cliffordu]

9. We had a couple in Seattle drop. One killed a Microsoft lawyer.

I don't think they get inspected like they used to. One crand that fell in NY, the inspector took a kickback and didn't do the inspection, IIRC.

[TheMightyFavog]

33. You're saying an attorney for Microsoft was killed...

...as if that's a bad thing.

:hide:

[FreeState]

36. He was very young and lived in my sisters building

he use to park his motor bike next to her. I know your trying to be funny but for those of us that have to live with the effects it's not even remotely funny.

[TheMightyFavog]

37. I feel for your loss FreeState.

I wouldn't have made the crack had I known. My apologies.

[proud patriot]

12. corruption

greed

[ColbertWatcher]

13. Like the FDA, all government regulatory agencies have been gutted.

In this case it sounds like OSHA is the victim.

[DemoTex]

22. Yeppers. Bu$hco gutted OSHA. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry (NY Times, April 25, 2007)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/washington/25osha.htm...

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. What is the usual number of crane collapses?

Are they happening more frequently, or is the media just covering them more?

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

18. Probably the same thing as the bridges and the food scandals and the financial crisis

Not enough safety oversight by the good ol' federales. Isn't the deregulated free market just beautiful?

[Snarkturian Clone]

23. NIMBY's love crane collapse.

In Philly we're trying to get the 1500 foot LEED-certified American Commerce Center put up, but a bunch of rich old people on the same block, who are surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers already, are trying to get it stopped because they think the construction noise is going to bother them... they've got a corrupt jail-bound PA state senator on their side (Fumo).. they'll start using these crane collapses to stall the biggest project Philly's ever seen.

[spanone]

28. deregulation