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The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster

The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster

Released Thursday, 14th September 2023
 2 people rated this episode
The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster

The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster

The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster

The Hyatt Regency Skywalk Disaster

Thursday, 14th September 2023
 2 people rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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0:01

Welcome to stuff you should know, a production

0:04

of iHeartRadio.

0:11

Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

0:12

So I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's

0:15

just the two of us and we're

0:17

gonna do just fine.

0:18

I have a good feeling because this is

0:20

stuff you should know. We've been at it for

0:22

decades now.

0:25

Not decades, well, in different

0:27

decades.

0:28

Right, that's how people get you. Yeah,

0:31

they say stuff like that.

0:33

That's right, Big CoA for this

0:35

one. It is about a very gruesome

0:37

tragedy that

0:40

we're gonna detail, and we're gonna talk

0:42

about a little bit of the gruesome stuff, but not

0:45

get to you know, detailed,

0:48

because it was a terrible tragedy. But we

0:50

just want to alert listeners, especially

0:53

our younger listeners, that some of this stuff is pretty

0:55

terrible. That is the events of

0:58

the High Regency Hotel in Kansas

1:00

City, Missouri in nineteen eighty one.

1:02

Yeah, and that was

1:05

just one year after that hotel opened.

1:07

Right, that's right.

1:09

This is the High Regency, a forty

1:12

five story, seven hundred room

1:14

hotel that opened in July of nineteen eighty

1:17

It was a part of a big suite a

1:20

complex called the Crown

1:22

Center. Huh Yeah, the

1:24

Crown Center complex, and

1:26

it had retail, had housing, all kinds of stuff

1:29

owned by the Hallmark Corporation.

1:31

That's where the Crown came from. Because

1:33

remember if you turn a Hallmark card over sometimes

1:35

it says Crown.

1:37

Well then their logo is a Crown.

1:39

Oh yeah, that too. But

1:41

this hotel, Chuck.

1:42

If you go back and look at pictures of it pre

1:45

disaster, it was magnificent.

1:47

Like if you looked up, you would see that there was

1:49

a high hall a

1:51

walkway right over your head. And

1:54

that was actually one of three that were kind of like

1:56

the signature design of this

1:58

atrium at the High Regions see Kansas

2:00

City.

2:01

That's right.

2:02

And like we said, this thing had been open

2:05

for about a year when the collapse

2:08

tragedy occurred. During one

2:10

of their they were hosting these weekend tea

2:13

dances, which apparently were very

2:15

popular in town. It was sort of an antiquated

2:18

old school thing that they did, but the people

2:20

of Kansas City ate it up and they were

2:22

just growing bigger and bigger with every weekend.

2:25

And on this particular weekend they

2:28

had, you know, as they did, they had a live

2:30

band playing, and I saw anywhere

2:33

from I

2:35

saw a thousand people in different places. This is

2:37

one of those things where like every time

2:39

you see a different

2:41

video, you'll get different numbers

2:44

and different things, and these

2:46

can be a little frustrating sometimes. But at

2:48

least a thousand, yeah, and maybe as many as

2:50

two thousand people there hanging

2:53

out, partying and dancing in the lobby.

2:55

Yeah.

2:55

I mean, if you see there's

2:57

footage of it, because I think one of the local

3:00

TV stations was doing a human interest piece

3:02

on how popular these this dance

3:04

had becomes Friday night dance, and

3:07

that place was packed with

3:09

people, not just in the atrium on

3:11

the floor, but also up at the terrace restaurant and

3:13

on those three walkways that

3:15

span the entire length

3:18

of the atrium from one side to another

3:20

on the second, third, and fourth floors.

3:23

So there was a ton of people. And the number

3:25

I most commonly saw was fifteen hundred,

3:28

so I guess everybody else split the difference.

3:30

Yeah, so it's crowded, it's packed

3:32

full of people. A little after seven

3:35

o'clock, the band comes back from a break

3:37

to play their final big number of the

3:39

dance contest. And you

3:43

know, when you look at interviews

3:46

with people from the time, they all describe

3:48

hearing three loud popping

3:50

noises or snapping noises.

3:53

They sounded like, you know, some people said they sounded like gunshots

3:56

going off.

3:58

In very quick success.

4:01

Floors the walkways of on floors

4:03

four and two collapsed fully

4:05

these cement and we're going to go over you

4:07

know why this happened and what these are all were made of, but

4:10

you know, steel and concrete, and it was super

4:12

heavy and collapsed on hundreds and hundreds

4:15

of people below.

4:16

Yes, so these each one I

4:18

think, weighed something like thirty

4:20

two tons, each of these

4:22

walkways did, and one

4:25

was above the number. The fourth

4:28

story walkway was directly

4:30

above the second story walkway, so much so

4:32

that the second story walkway was dangling from the

4:34

fourth story walkway. So in the fourth story

4:36

walkway gave it came down, the

4:38

second story hit the ground first, the

4:41

fourth story walkway hit the second

4:43

floor. So there was like a stratum

4:46

or a strata of layers

4:49

of destruction of debris and people

4:51

were pin chuck beneath two

4:53

thirty two ton walkways that were

4:55

in four segments. So each segment

4:58

wasn't thirty two tons, but it was enough to really

5:00

do a lot of damage, like immediately,

5:03

like apparently it happened in

5:05

the blink of an eye basically, and

5:07

I mean, like it's really tough to get across,

5:09

like how much of a tragedy this was.

5:11

Like there were couples dancing that were

5:13

killed simultaneously by this

5:16

stuff, So that means that there were

5:18

people in Kansas City who lost both parents

5:20

all at once, or lost one parent,

5:23

or lost a friend. Like a lot of

5:25

people were impacted by this tragedy

5:28

and it just happened in just the blink of an eye.

5:31

Yeah, I mean it ripped from the ceiling

5:33

and they just collapsed. The eyewitness

5:36

accounts if you see any of

5:38

the either contemporaneous footage

5:40

or they've done interviews with people since and

5:43

like follow up documentaries and such, it's

5:45

just awful. Everyone talked about

5:48

how in like the

5:50

some people set up to like five seconds afterward,

5:53

it was just complete silence, like obviously

5:56

the every the band had

5:58

stopped and there was just a brief moment

6:00

of nothingness and then all

6:03

of a sudden screaming, wailing

6:06

people in some

6:08

of the most horrible pain and

6:12

circumstances that you can imagine, which

6:14

again we're going to get to a little bit, But it's

6:18

if you really want to dive into the down

6:20

the rabbit hole of what all happened to these folks, you

6:22

can you can look this stuff up online.

6:24

Yeah, there's there's actually a lot of really well written

6:28

articles on it from out of Kansas

6:30

City.

6:31

But the the in.

6:33

That chaos that ensued

6:35

almost immediately, there were a

6:37

lot of people pinned underneath. There were

6:39

people who've been injured by debris, and

6:42

then there were other people who were

6:45

nearby and were just dazed and

6:48

weren't really injured at all, but just couldn't believe

6:50

what they'd just seen. And then there was a small

6:52

kind of cadre people among

6:55

the witnesses who just kind of

6:57

immediately sprang into action. And we

6:59

you see footage of the immedia affrom at. You see

7:01

men in suits and women in dresses

7:03

like trying to pick through the debris and get

7:06

people out of there as fast as they can. And

7:08

all of this just started even before the

7:10

fire department and police department showed

7:13

up to start to take charge of things.

7:15

People just immediately some people had

7:17

an impulse to go in there and help.

7:20

Yeah, it was and you know, we should mention

7:23

that the fire Department of the Cops.

7:25

Everyone got there really really fast. Yeah, apparently

7:28

they were also close to hospitals.

7:31

I think there were three, it was called Hospital

7:33

Hill, three hospitals that were really

7:35

nearby that started taking people on. They

7:39

were working, you know, basically

7:41

into the night and into the next morning, with

7:44

a final death toll

7:46

of one hundred and fourteen people

7:50

perished and more than two hundred were

7:52

injured. And I think they still listed

7:54

as an American history, at

7:56

least the largest structural disaster in

7:59

history.

8:00

That it was until September

8:03

eleventh, the largest in American history,

8:05

and then it became the largest accidental

8:07

structural disaster in

8:10

American history. So,

8:12

yeah, one hundred and fourteen people

8:15

dead, one hundred and eleven like basically dead

8:17

on the scene. Three more people who were

8:19

gravely injured died later on from their

8:21

injuries. And the

8:24

people who survived there were incredibly

8:27

survivors who were pinned under these

8:29

walkways as slabs of concrete,

8:32

but they were in terrible shape.

8:35

And there was a man named Mark Williams who

8:37

was a survivor, and he's if you read

8:39

about this or watch videos on it, he's very prominent.

8:42

He's a very outspoken type of

8:44

guy, and he talked a lot about

8:46

being rescued. He was the last person rescued

8:48

all the way at four thirty am,

8:51

but he was at the bar that

8:54

was directly beneath the walkways and

8:56

realized what was happening and started

8:59

to run. Those walkways fell so fast

9:02

that apparently he didn't even get his first stride,

9:04

but his legs were astride

9:07

and so he was smushed down into a

9:09

split and that's where he

9:11

stayed until four thirty am. And

9:13

this happened at like seven pm,

9:16

and he survived. He managed to

9:18

live. And there were other stories like that

9:20

too, a little eleven year old boy who was pulled out

9:22

of the rubble. A few people I

9:25

think six or seven or something like that were

9:28

did manage to survive, but the vast

9:30

majority of people who were on or

9:32

under the walkways when they

9:34

collapsed died.

9:36

Yeah, there was.

9:39

There were situations where they had to

9:42

amputate arms and legs on

9:44

the spot just to get people out

9:46

of there and give them a chance

9:49

at living, and they did this kind

9:51

of thing with chainsaws. There

9:53

was one and this is really

9:55

gruesome, but there was one horrific story

9:58

of a guy that was, you know, trying

10:00

to pull someone out and the guy's arm

10:02

just comes off and he's holding it, and

10:05

the officer on charge said, the guy just set

10:08

it down and left. And

10:10

you know, we'll get to the PTSD that

10:13

obviously followed, but a lot of these first

10:16

responders, you

10:18

know, there were some suicides later

10:20

on. There was alcoholism and

10:23

drug use and lives

10:25

and shambles because they didn't have stuff,

10:27

like you know, they went to work the next day. They

10:29

weren't like, all right, we need to get you into counseling

10:32

quick like and start taking care of you. And that's

10:34

one of the big changes that came out of this was

10:37

PTSD therapy for emergency

10:39

responders.

10:40

Yeah, and it had an impact

10:42

on the entire city. I mean, people who weren't

10:44

there, people who didn't even know

10:46

people who were there, were still impacted for

10:48

years and years. It just had it just left

10:50

a blotch on the city. It was just such

10:53

a horrible tragedy. And

10:55

there are a couple of other stories that stuck out to me

10:57

of the people who died. One

11:00

that did was a

11:02

woman named Lynn Vander Hayden who's

11:05

twenty two, and she would

11:07

just happen to be walking through the lobby on her

11:09

way to the Revolving

11:11

restaurant on the top of the hotel.

11:14

She was just passing through and she died. And

11:17

then another one that stood out as a man named Oscar

11:19

Grimm, who pushed his wife

11:21

Joan out of the way and

11:24

she lived and he died. But he

11:26

managed to act that quickly

11:29

that he was able to save his wife's life.

11:32

His last act on earth was to save his wife's

11:35

life, which I think is remarkable.

11:37

Yeah, that's amazing. So

11:40

they turn the you know, it basically

11:42

becomes a war zone. Immediately,

11:45

they turn one room into a triage

11:48

center. They turned one room into a temporary

11:51

morgue. They're trying to get people out of there and

11:53

into the parking lot. It

11:56

is summertime, so was still daylight during

11:59

the initial efforts, but as

12:02

darkness fell, the power had been blown.

12:04

So then it becomes dark overnight

12:07

when they're still you know, sort of digging

12:09

through there, either trying to get dead

12:11

bodies out or trying to get people out

12:14

that are still just wailing in the darkness.

12:16

And not only that, but the

12:18

sprinkler system had torn apart and

12:21

a water pipe burst and for

12:24

about fifty minutes this. You

12:26

know, parts of this room were filling up with

12:29

water, and you know, let's say

12:31

you're trapped in a very small, confined

12:33

space is filling up with water. There were

12:35

survivors that said they thought they were going

12:37

to drown all of a sudden.

12:39

I didn't see that anyone definitively

12:41

did drown, but the people on the bottom

12:43

of the pile were definitely in danger of it

12:45

for sure. It took forty

12:47

five minutes, I think, to finally turn the water

12:49

off forty eight forty eight and

12:52

then but there was a quick thinking

12:54

fire chief. I don't know if it was a deputy chief

12:56

I saw. I didn't get their name, and there were a bunch of

12:58

deputy chiefs there, but they

13:02

were like, we need to bulldoze these front doors

13:04

because they're acting as a damn. So they bulldozed

13:06

the doors and let the water out and kind

13:08

of saved the day. But that

13:10

was I mean, imagine being pinned beneath this rubble

13:12

and now you might accidentally drown.

13:15

Like what a day.

13:17

Yeah, it was. It was a

13:19

tragedy that still looms large.

13:22

And maybe we should take a break and talk

13:25

about what happened and why this happened

13:27

right after this.

13:53

So, Chuck, there were so many people and

13:56

very fortunately, like you said, they were near

13:58

a few hospitals, but they ended up

14:00

requiring seventeen emergency rooms

14:03

for this.

14:04

Yeah.

14:05

They construction companies came

14:07

in and were donating forklifts,

14:09

they were donating cranes, people

14:12

were donating their own personal equipment. Everybody

14:15

basically came and chipped

14:17

in. You mentioned those front doors

14:19

being knocked down. They ended up knocking holes

14:21

through the entire front of the hotel, not

14:25

holes like there was no front of the hotel

14:27

because they had to get a crane in there eventually.

14:30

Because all the equipment that they were trying

14:32

to get forklifts, I mean, you name

14:34

it, to try and lift these concrete

14:37

slabs, it was just pushing everything

14:39

out of the way. So they ended up having to bring in,

14:41

like, you know, the most heavy duty construction

14:44

crane you can imagine to pull these

14:46

things up eventually.

14:47

So I saw, Chuck that like there were

14:49

all these amazing acts of people of generosity,

14:52

of heroism, and just people

14:54

coming together. And I also saw from

14:56

some of the people who were involved that

14:59

within our of the tragedy,

15:02

the mood did like a one to eighty, and

15:04

people started to want to know what happened,

15:07

what had gone wrong, and who was to blame,

15:10

because it was very clearly something had gone

15:12

terribly wrong with the structure of

15:14

those skywalks, and people wanted to know why

15:17

because again, this was just such

15:19

a catastrophic loss of life it was almost

15:21

incomprehensible. But it started

15:23

to settle in that it had happened and

15:25

that somebody somewhere was

15:28

to blame and people wanted to know.

15:31

Yeah.

15:31

So what they eventually figured out, and

15:33

this was after some

15:36

pretty amazing investigation by

15:38

the National Bureau of Standards

15:41

which is now the National Institute of Standards

15:43

and Technology. They

15:45

were I mean they did they X

15:47

rayed material, they did metallurgical examinations

15:50

of steel, they did, you

15:53

know, physics tests, They did

15:55

everything you could imagine to figure

15:57

out what went wrong and what they landed

15:59

on. It turns out they

16:02

didn't really need to do any of those

16:04

tests. It was a design change

16:06

that was, as it turns out, basically

16:08

rubber stamped. The

16:10

original design of these walkways

16:12

that were again two and four were suspended

16:15

above each other, and floor number

16:17

three, which didn't collapse, was just offset from

16:19

that one kind of over the center of the atrium. But

16:22

the original design called for these skywalks

16:25

to be held together with one, you

16:27

know, group of continuous steel

16:29

rods that went through both floors,

16:32

and all the sets of these hollow

16:34

beams threaded with nuts.

16:37

But this was like, you know, forty

16:39

five feet or so of threaded rod.

16:42

And they said, you know what, threading wears

16:44

out, and if you thread a nut forty five feet,

16:47

that's a long way, and eventually by

16:49

the time you get to where you want to go that things are not going to

16:51

be as strong as it needs to be. So

16:53

they changed the design to

16:55

basically hang the second floor

16:58

from the first the fourth floor using

17:00

two sets of rods instead of one continuous

17:03

set, which basically double

17:06

the weight of what everything was hanging

17:08

on on floor four. There's

17:10

a great YouTube video. I

17:13

believe the guy is English. His name

17:15

is Tom Scott, but he got

17:18

an engineer, this guy named Grady from Practical

17:20

Engineers, who put it like this.

17:23

Imagine a long rope that

17:25

two friends are hanging on. One person's hanging

17:27

above the other. That's fine. Then

17:30

imagine that same rope with the

17:32

same two people hanging but in this case,

17:35

the second person is hanging from the other person's

17:37

ankles, so the total weight

17:39

is the same, but the stress

17:42

on that first person or in this case, that

17:45

first top fourth floor is different.

17:47

Yeah.

17:47

I saw a guy named Bill Quip Klapman

17:50

who said flagpole instead of rope.

17:53

So I think that kind of

17:55

demonstrates Chuck that because it's such

17:57

an easy analogy that

18:00

you could have looked at these designs and I

18:02

mean you specifically and me and

18:05

been like, are you sure this is the same as what

18:07

you guys originally had, Like as far

18:09

as the math goes, it was, I

18:11

wouldn't have So it was so radically

18:13

different, But

18:16

at the same time, it seemed like, yeah,

18:18

it's a no brainer. Of course that's what you're gonna

18:20

do, because not only are those could

18:22

those threads wear out? Like

18:25

how you're gonna have to put the entire

18:27

skywalk on each

18:29

of those six threads, those six

18:32

hanging rods threaded hanging rods,

18:35

Like you're gonna have to slide them down, and of course

18:37

you're gonna damage some of those threads and then

18:40

they're totally useless. You won't be able to screw

18:42

those nuts all the way up to the bottom of the skywalk

18:44

any longer. So what you're

18:46

gonna do? You just cut it in half. It

18:49

makes total sense. It's still the same general

18:51

design. The two skywalks are hanging

18:53

from the ceiling, but like you said, now, the

18:56

second floor skywalk is hanging from the

18:58

fourth floor skywalk. That was

19:01

a catastrophic mistake because

19:04

the skywalks themselves were in no way,

19:06

shape or form designed to hold

19:08

up their own weight, and they

19:11

were attached on either end to basically

19:13

portals that led to the hallways

19:16

that continued on the fourth, second and third

19:18

floor on either side. Those connections

19:20

to those portals were in no way, shape

19:22

or form designed to hold the walkway up. So

19:26

I think I said. They spanned the entire length

19:29

of the atrium, which is one hundred and twenty

19:31

feet, So these were one hundred and twenty feet long

19:33

skywalks, and they

19:35

had brass handrails

19:39

at waist high, and then between that and the

19:41

skywalk was class It was super cool looking,

19:43

super late seventies early eighties design.

19:46

Right.

19:47

They were attached to

19:49

the end hallways on either side,

19:52

so they were basically like the hallways were

19:54

just suddenly stripped of everything around them except

19:56

for the part you walked on, and that's

19:59

what crossed to the tre It's pretty cool. And

20:02

they were attached to the hallways that continued

20:04

on either side through portals, and

20:07

the actual

20:09

span itself was held

20:11

aloft by three box beams

20:14

that were perpendicular to the length of

20:17

the walkways themselves. Right,

20:19

So you had basically it looked like a kid

20:22

swing, but three of them,

20:24

and then you had the walkway spanning those

20:26

three things. Does that make sense?

20:29

I think so.

20:29

So the walkway was held up by

20:32

those three box beams

20:35

that were held aloft each by two

20:38

hanging rods, and it

20:40

just it just couldn't do it. What's

20:43

surprising to me is that it lasted a full

20:45

year after it opened.

20:47

You know, yeah, I mean,

20:50

I guess we could go over the load

20:52

bearing here. That seems to be a pretty good place

20:54

for it. The NBS, like

20:56

I said, he was doing the investigating. They

21:00

you know, they did testing. They built their own version

21:03

of this stuff, and they went and

21:05

found that the load bearing capacity for

21:09

just one individual connection

21:11

was eighty one killo

21:13

newtons, which I've never heard of before.

21:16

To clear things up, chuck, a kill a newton is equal

21:18

to one kilogram meter per

21:20

second squared, So I'm.

21:23

Sure that clears it up for everybody. Right, And

21:26

that's just the you know, that's called the dead low. That's

21:28

the way to the structure itself. If

21:32

you have people on it, obviously it's going to be

21:34

a lot different. And there were a lot of people

21:36

on this. They were up there having a good time and dancing

21:38

and partying. They said

21:40

that would add another eleven

21:43

killo newtons, So eventually

21:46

you get to a total you know, by the time it

21:48

collapsed, a total weight of ninety five killer

21:50

newtons, which was fourteen

21:53

more than it was even supposed to hold

21:55

to begin with.

21:56

Right, that's just like, that's how

21:58

it was in reality. The thing

22:00

that makes it even worse to me is that that doesn't

22:03

meet code at all.

22:05

Like code is that you would have to basically

22:07

double that amount of load

22:10

bearing capacity to have passed

22:13

inspection. And yet these things passed

22:15

inspection.

22:16

Oh at the time it was double yes.

22:18

Yeah, yeah, that wasn't a change. Like this thing passed

22:20

inspection despite

22:23

the code requiring it to

22:25

be able to support one hundred and eighty one killer

22:28

newtons. Like you said, they were able

22:30

to support eighty one killer newtons.

22:32

So it was a terrible

22:35

design. And the only explanation

22:38

was that the actual explanation that

22:40

when they changed that design from

22:42

the singular rods, which is two guys hanging

22:45

separately on a fire pole or a rope rather

22:47

than hanging on their ankles, when

22:50

they changed it, no one did

22:52

the calculations to see if it would hold

22:54

up. And that is exactly what happened.

22:57

Yeah, they you know, they did.

22:59

Of course, something like this happens, you're gonna

23:02

inspect, like the welding, you're

23:04

gonna inspect the steel.

23:05

I know.

23:05

They subpoened the actual steel

23:07

manufacturer and the welding

23:10

company and the GC and like basically everybody

23:12

involved. And what

23:15

they found was this thing basically

23:18

like the welds would eventually

23:20

rip. They had these two sort of sea bracket

23:23

beams that they welded together to form one

23:25

hollow, squared beam, and

23:28

the rods ran through the middle of these and those did

23:30

split, and the bolts basically pulled. You

23:33

can see pictures where it just pulled right

23:35

up through the center of them. But they said

23:38

that this would have happened anyway even if it

23:40

was like a solid steel beam and not

23:42

too welded together.

23:43

It wasn't because the welds.

23:44

It wasn't because of

23:46

anything basically other than the fact that this design

23:49

change made it almost inevitable.

23:51

So this design change was done by

23:54

the steel fabricator on what are called

23:56

shop drawings, and shop drawings are basically

23:59

like a close up explanation of

24:01

exactly how you're supposed to manufacture what

24:03

the engineer or the architect wants right,

24:06

And the steel fabricator

24:09

says that they called the

24:11

architect in charge, a guy named Daniel Duncan,

24:15

and got his approval over the phone

24:17

to change the rods from

24:19

one single rod to two rods

24:22

split in half.

24:23

And that was it.

24:26

There was no no one on the steel

24:28

fabricator side did the calculations,

24:30

and yet they stamped their approval on it. Dan

24:33

Duncan didn't do the calculations,

24:36

and yet he stamped his approval on it. And

24:38

then a guy named Jack Gillham, who was the

24:40

art of the engineer of record who

24:42

Dan Duncan worked for and

24:45

was in charge of this project, he didn't do the

24:47

calculations and he stamped a steal of approval

24:49

on that change as well. So it made

24:51

it through. It made it through the process. That

24:53

it's supposed to go through. And when you're

24:55

sitting there building this, or when you're sitting

24:57

there putting all this together and you're looking at

24:59

this and it's got all three stamps

25:02

that it's supposed to have, you're pretty sure

25:04

that it's the way it's supposed

25:06

to be. People don't stop and question

25:08

that kind of thing, or at least they didn't during

25:10

this construction phase.

25:12

Yeah.

25:13

I think that's so important to remember, because I

25:15

think people stop all the time and

25:18

say things aren't safe and that we should revisit

25:20

stuff. Yeah, but they didn't hear

25:23

there was even apparently, you

25:25

know, in interviews after the fact, there were crew

25:28

from the build site that we're saying

25:30

like they saw these beams sort of stressing

25:32

and bending a little bit when they were putting this thing

25:34

together. There was a collapse

25:37

earlier, a

25:39

huge section of the roof collapse on this building

25:41

in the middle of the night while they were

25:43

building it. So this was a project

25:45

that already had sort of one near

25:48

tragedy averted on

25:50

its hands, and it was just sort

25:52

of pushed through and

25:55

no one spoke up. And of course I'm not blaming

25:57

the builder who saw the

25:59

steel, but like, you know,

26:02

everyone should be able to stand up and

26:04

say and not just assume

26:07

that someone else knows what they're doing when

26:09

it comes to a project like this.

26:11

Yeah, I think that's essential, and I think that

26:14

this disaster actually kind

26:16

of helped change that too. That was one of the things that

26:18

did change. So I'd say, Chuck, we take

26:20

a break and come back and talk about some of the fallout

26:22

from this.

26:23

All right, let's do it.

26:50

So before we broke, you mentioned a guy named

26:52

Jack Gillham, who was the engineer

26:54

in charge of the project.

26:56

Gillham would go on to be a public speaker.

27:00

He later went on to say, you know that the problem

27:02

this is a quote was so obvious that a first

27:05

year engineering student could have

27:07

figured it out

27:09

too.

27:10

Little, too late.

27:10

Obviously, there was a tribunal

27:13

form by the Missouri Board of Professional Engineers

27:16

in nineteen eighty four in the years following that

27:18

ruled it they were grossly

27:20

negligent. The

27:23

phone approval was obviously grossly

27:25

negligent, and there was quote

27:27

a conscious indifference to professional

27:30

duty.

27:31

So how does that

27:33

happen?

27:35

It was a time where there

27:37

was a lot of production and

27:39

construction being rushed through, not

27:42

just there but all over the place the

27:44

late seventies in the early eighties, it

27:46

just seems like there were a lot of fast track projects.

27:49

There wasn't as much oversight, there

27:51

weren't as many rules in

27:53

place, and there was a

27:56

lot of stuff ed. Who helped us out with this

27:58

pointed out the Kemper Arena roof collapse

28:01

in seventy nine. The

28:03

Hartford Civic Center had another collapse

28:05

in the year before in seventy eight. The

28:08

chat Plain Towers in

28:10

Miami that collapsed in twenty twenty one, they

28:12

were built in that time, in the late seventies and

28:14

early eighties, So it just seems like

28:16

it was a time where you know, people

28:19

were probably just rushing around trying to

28:21

make money. Greed is always a factor, I

28:23

think in stuff like this and just trying

28:25

to build bill build.

28:27

So yeah, but.

28:29

Yeah, and there were it was a cascading

28:31

chain of failures

28:33

to not

28:36

pass the buck, to actually stop and look at things.

28:38

But you can really lay at the most at Duncan

28:40

and Gilliam's feet, and that tribunal

28:43

that Gillam went through found,

28:45

like you said, that he was grossly negligent, But

28:47

the way that they proved his negligence

28:50

was that his firm had a

28:52

policy that the engineer of record on any

28:54

project had to verify all plans

28:57

and all changes them

29:00

before stamping.

29:02

It with approval.

29:03

And the fact that he had failed to meet his own

29:05

requirements, that tribunal said,

29:07

that's proof positive that

29:09

you were negligent in this. And then

29:11

they also said, apparently he

29:14

had a lot of pushback that he was giving.

29:16

He would not accept responsibility. He

29:18

deflected it at every turn,

29:21

and it was so his attitude about it was

29:23

so cavalier.

29:24

They said that.

29:26

They cited it as an additional

29:30

breach of professional obligations.

29:32

It was that bad that, like his refusal

29:35

accept responsibility, was yet another

29:39

piece of negligence that happened after

29:41

the fact.

29:42

Yeah, and you know, if all this

29:44

stuff sounds criminal, none

29:47

of it rose to any kind

29:49

of criminal proceeding.

29:51

It was a civil legal

29:54

quagmire.

29:56

Like we said, it was owned by Hallmark Cards,

29:58

this building and the ones around and

30:01

there were one hundred and thirty plus

30:03

lawsuits. They didn't all get

30:05

together and kind of go after them together,

30:08

which you know sometimes can happen.

30:10

They were fragmented.

30:11

Some people went at it alone, some people got

30:13

together with you know a few other people. And

30:16

there were one hundred and thirty suits plus

30:18

total, seeking more than three billion

30:20

dollars in damages. The

30:23

hotel costs fifty million dollars to build to

30:26

begin with, like the entire operation, And

30:29

depending on the cases,

30:32

they always settled, sometimes kind

30:34

of right up until they were supposed to go to trial. But

30:37

they did settle all of them in

30:39

various ways. There was a woman

30:42

named Winfred Witscher who got

30:44

five hundred dollars because her face

30:46

got cut. There was a

30:48

widow and four kids of

30:52

Henry Botnan who got six hundred

30:54

thousand dollars. Different

30:56

federal courts would come in or different judges

30:58

would come in and basically

31:00

say all right, let's let's get together

31:03

on a large settlement when it ended up being one

31:05

thousand dollars to basically anybody who could

31:07

prove they were there period, like whether

31:09

or not they were injured. If you could prove you were

31:12

there, you would get a thousand bucks.

31:14

Yeah, and I guess waive any right

31:16

to sue after that point. Well,

31:18

sure, But they ended up paying out something like one hundred

31:20

and forty million dollars. Most of it came

31:23

from Hallmark.

31:24

Yeah, I saw one fifty well, and that's.

31:26

In early eighties dollars, I believe, right.

31:29

Yeah, I mean not close to the three bill.

31:32

No, no, no, for sure.

31:33

But they Hallmark ended

31:35

up paying out, mostly because they

31:37

were the ultimate owner of

31:39

that hotel, and from what I saw,

31:42

they were. There was a guy

31:44

who was suing Hallmark,

31:46

but Hallmark settled, and the lawyer

31:49

had done all this extensive research

31:51

and discovery and it basically found that Hallmark

31:53

was really more culpable than anyone

31:56

thought, and Hallmark's Hallmark

31:58

settled. The thing never got published, but

32:02

I got the impression that's why Hallmark ended

32:04

up spending the most money out

32:06

of anybody to settle

32:08

these claims.

32:10

And the.

32:12

Whole experience just tore

32:14

the town apart because there

32:16

were people who wanted to get to the truth and wanted, you

32:18

know, retribution, and apparently

32:20

the business community really wanted

32:22

to kind of sweep it under the rug for

32:24

a lot of different reasons. But I think a lot

32:26

of the boosters were like, this is a black eye on the

32:28

city. I saw it described as and

32:31

the Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Times

32:34

said no, no, no, we're going to report on this. Even

32:36

in the face of community pushback,

32:40

I guess, and they won pulisers

32:42

for their reporting for local reporting

32:45

because they got to the

32:47

bottom of what actually happened.

32:50

Yeah, there was a guy, like

32:52

you said, there was a news crew on the scene anyway

32:54

for the tea dance, and

32:57

this cameraman was filming a lot of the aftermath,

32:59

and he had people there

33:01

that were victims that were coming up trying

33:03

to like rip his camera away and start

33:05

a fight with the guy, saying he shouldn't

33:07

be shooting that stuff. But

33:10

people came to his defense in the moment.

33:12

What I don't get is how

33:15

I mean, I know Hallmark ultimately will pay because they

33:17

were the parent company, But how did someone

33:19

say they were more culpable than

33:24

when it's really obvious that it was a design

33:26

change that was rubber stamped by

33:28

this design firm, Like,

33:30

what did Hallmark? It's not like they ran that up the greeting

33:34

card chain and they said, yeah, let's do that.

33:36

This is the impression I have that

33:39

the whole thing was fast and loose and cutting

33:41

corners was in part because

33:43

Hallmark or the subsidiary

33:46

Hallmark owned the hotel, was

33:48

cheaping out and one of the

33:51

one piece of evidence I saw that kind of

33:53

puts that together was from

33:55

Gillham, who one of his defenses

33:57

was I asked for on site in spaces,

34:00

at the metal fabricators, at the

34:02

job site, everywhere, and Hallmark

34:04

wouldn't shell out the extra money to make

34:07

that happen. Had there been an inspector

34:09

on site, then this would have never happened

34:11

kind of thing. So I

34:15

think one of the reasons why the business community wanted

34:17

to sweep it on the rug is Hallmark is the It

34:19

was, at least at the time, the far and away the largest

34:22

employer in Kansas City, very

34:24

much beloved. A lot of people owed their livelihood

34:27

to Hallmark, Their kids went

34:29

to college because of Hallmark. It was a really

34:32

well regarded company. And

34:35

apparently that

34:37

that was that facade or whatever,

34:39

that image was attacked by the

34:41

Times in the Star. And that was one reason why some people

34:44

were so against that reporting, because even

34:46

if you didn't have anything to hide, but you still had an

34:48

affinity for Hallmark because they were your employer,

34:51

you might be upset at the news for reporting

34:53

that kind of thing.

34:54

Even sure, a

34:56

lot of the many millions of dollars were

34:58

ear Mark for charities that

35:01

Hallmark donated to as part of.

35:03

These plea deals.

35:04

Hyatt actually sued for

35:06

four million dollars, but not Hallmark.

35:09

They sued the design

35:12

firm. They sued twelve different parties, including

35:14

the design firm, the GC, the

35:17

steel manufacturer that I could

35:19

not find out what happened with those lawsuits,

35:21

which was really frustrating.

35:23

But there were lawsuits all over the place.

35:25

Yeah, it was a mess. And as you would expect,

35:27

and like I said to this, the shadow hung over

35:30

the entire city for a decade. Apparently it

35:32

came in a really terrible time because

35:34

the city had just gone through a burst of prosperity,

35:36

I think, and this hotel

35:38

was kind of a symbol of that, and

35:41

so it kind of really shook

35:43

the foundations of this kind of exuberant

35:45

Kansas City. Like you know how like when you're the

35:49

more excited you are, the more happy you are,

35:51

the harder you fall when something comes

35:54

along and just completely undermines that. I

35:57

get the impression that that was kind of what up

36:00

into Kansas City. It took a long time for

36:02

it to recover. It wasn't until two thousand

36:04

and eight that they even managed to erect

36:06

a memorial because Apparently there's so

36:08

many people who didn't want to think about it or talk

36:10

about it or memorialize it. But

36:12

somebody, some of the survivor's family

36:16

or some of the victims' families got

36:19

together and created a

36:21

memorial at a park just a

36:23

block or so away, and Hallmark kicked

36:25

in twenty five thousand dollars.

36:27

That's right to build the

36:29

memorial itself.

36:32

It is still there, the higher regency is and

36:34

those that atream is still

36:36

there, and the walkway on the second floor is still

36:38

there. Of course, it's not held up by it's

36:41

not suspended. It is held from underneath

36:43

by columns and obvious And

36:45

you know, I mentioned the PTSD for

36:48

first responders. That was a big push after

36:50

this, and then also just

36:53

you know, a general tightening

36:55

up of and this wasn't

36:57

just in Kansas City, this was an international incident.

36:59

So it really shook

37:02

up the industry as far as how fast

37:05

and loose things were going overall.

37:07

Yeah, I know the asse. The American

37:09

Society of Civil Engineers

37:12

came out and said, unambiguously,

37:15

if you're the engineer of record, you have

37:17

to verify every single change or

37:19

you are completely responsible for anything

37:22

that happens as a result of that.

37:24

It's on you, like, just want to make sure

37:26

we're clear about that. And that was that was a change

37:28

that came directly from that and from Gillham

37:31

himself.

37:31

Well, the buck has to stop with somebody.

37:34

It was a situation where everybody

37:36

was finger pointing and when

37:39

when you can point to a single decision

37:42

that that caused this and not like

37:45

well it was sort of this and this and this right

37:47

like that these things had had they not even

37:50

had that tea dance, eventually

37:52

they would have collapsed.

37:53

They just weren't built correctly.

37:55

Yeah, it's uh, it's nuts.

37:57

I saw that even the original design wouldn't

38:00

have met code for holding

38:02

up people, wouldn't have reached

38:04

those killing newtons that it needed.

38:07

You got anything else, No, I got nothing

38:09

else. Big

38:12

shout out to the people of Kansas City. I

38:14

hope to do a show there one day. We did go to Lawrence,

38:16

Kansas and Saint Louis in

38:19

the general area, but we have not hit

38:21

Kansas City yet.

38:22

So we'll do that one day.

38:23

Yes, one day we will for sure. And

38:26

since Chuck just promised Kansas City

38:28

we're going to come to a show. Of course, he unlocked

38:30

listener mail.

38:34

I'm gonna call this just

38:37

something a little lighter.

38:38

I think we could use it, yeah,

38:40

because we inadvertently well,

38:43

I'll just read it. Hey, guys, been listening to the show

38:45

for about six years. My first time writing

38:47

in to highlight an ongoing mistake that

38:50

is nonetheless hilarious and I assume

38:52

completely unintentional. During the

38:54

twenty two Halloween episode, Josh

38:56

voice one of the great characters in English literature,

38:59

Megal in the toll House.

39:01

But in subsequent episodes, when you guys, namely

39:04

Chuck, tries to get Josh to do the voice, he

39:06

refers to him as Smiegel. Spiegel,

39:09

of course, is the hobbit from the Lord of the Rings who's

39:11

corrupted by the One Ring and eventually transformed into

39:14

Gollum. After hearing this, I went back

39:16

and red listened to the twenty

39:18

twenty two Halloween episode again, and I can sure

39:20

I can assure you that the toll House is even better

39:22

second time around. First, and

39:24

now I can just imagine a mixture of Josh

39:27

and Andy serkis narrating the dialogue of

39:29

Smiegele Gollum as the Meagle character

39:31

in question. I almost

39:33

didn't want to write in because of this to make you

39:35

aware of.

39:35

This hilarious error.

39:37

Though I assume someone will eventually beat me to

39:40

it, but not true. Josh

39:42

Bills Borrow, you were the first to write in. We did get

39:44

a couple of people that wrote in after you though that

39:48

Yeah, he were first, Ease and Josh

39:50

is from Madison, Connecticut.

39:52

Way to go, Josh, thanks for that.

39:54

Thanks to everybody who wrote in to say the same thing,

39:56

because it is pretty hilarious.

39:59

Maybe that's why I'm if I Migle's been

40:01

off.

40:01

I've been accidentally doing sgle proughly.

40:03

So well, we'll get to the bottom of that, everybody.

40:06

I promise Megel will be back someday.

40:08

Someday.

40:09

Uh And if you want to get in touch of this, like Josh

40:11

at all did, you can send us an email

40:14

to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

40:17

dot com.

40:20

You Know, Stuff you Should Know is a production

40:22

of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

40:24

my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

40:27

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40:29

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