Elliot Lake’s Deadly Design Flaw - Massive Engineering Mistakes - Engineering Documentary

Grady from Practical Engineering spotted! 😂

This is why 'failsafe' engineering is important. 'Failsafe' doesn't mean it is safe from failure. Nothing ever is. Failsafe means it's designed to fail in a safe way. EVERY retaining wall will fail, sooner or later. EVERY sensor will give false readings, eventually. You're putting massive amounts of water on top of a mountain. That's not where it would naturally go. Plan for it to get out of there in ways you don't want it to.

Leaked for 30 years…No warning before collapse🙄

If the mall was leaking water before it even opened, then the city is partly responsible because it should have been red tagged on final inspection. Good enough IS NOT good enough

I lived there ! on the day it collapsed I was on my way back to Elliot Lake where I lived and heard about it on the radio . I went directly to the mall anticipating to at the very least, donate blood or go get coffee. The place WAS DESERTED . There were NO rescuers working around the clock, nothing. Two women, I learned later were still inside and alive apparently. The local geniuses had decided that the scene was "too dangerous" to work, any rescue equipment was several hours away at best, so they just left the place overnight. Remember, this was a logging and mining town. FULL of experienced people. There was plenty of privately owned equipment and the people to operate it and even if somewhat unconventionally, they were willing and able to attempt rescuing the two women still alive at that time. THEY WERE PREVENTED FROM TRYING. I knew these people and had heard many stories of what they had done over the years. I am sure that they could have saved these women. It was more than 24 hours before any attempt was made by which time it was way too late. The collapse was a disaster for sure, the death of the two women was borderline criminal by not allowing locals to attempt a rescue.

Australia might have learned from its building fire. The UK is a whole other thing. There are 1000s who still live in flats in dangerous buildings they can't sell and can't afford to fix, even though our similar tragedy was actually fatal. 💚

I toured that plant as an entering student and I asked how do you sense when it is full. They said a float with a microswitch. I said that is too likely to fail! They said it was inspected daily. And it overtopped.

With the shopping Mall, calling it an Engineering failure is untrue, the fact is that there were leakage issues from the start and instead of fixing the roof waterproofing they stupidly and I would say neglectfully left it to leak for 30 years until the rusted structure could not support the car park any more. The building owners should be held responsible for the loss of life. Not an Engineering Fail, the Architects should have been partially blamed for the waterproofing only and forced to claim of insurance to get the building fixed 30 years earlier, but to allow the water to leak for 30 years that is just madness.

This show has a lot of hard lessons paid in people’s lives and broken hearts 💔. We had an architecture disaster here in New Orleans. 3 men lost their lives, including one who had been reporting problems with construction site. Our community still mourns. 😢

the dude from Practical Engineering XD

What a pleasant surprise to see Grady as a talking head giving expert commentary! I find his engineering style very practical.

It's outstanding the mall resists 30 years, but as usual, even seeing proof of leak, nothing done until it's too late, money first is the rule.

The fact that with 4 disasters.. only 2 fatalities.. that alone is amazing.. still, mistakes can be costly..

Should have used flex seal on that roof and flex tape on that dam.

There was a similar incident in London. Grenfell Towers. The cause was the same, flammable cladding. Not so lucky that time- 72 dead. We just never learn.

surprised Grenfell Tower fire wasn't in this video.

I used live in a suburb on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia where the community of Tuggerah use a 2 level shopping centre with roof top parking. Parts of the shopping centre at the eastern end have been plagued by a leaking roof whenever rain falls. We have moved from that area and note that the age of the centre would be approaching 30 years. I wonder who inspects the mall?

Remember when buildings were made from non flammable materials? ... Ah, those were the times! Cladding a building in polyethylene is beyond stupid. PE is basically a fancy variant of candle wax. And when exposed to enough heat, it will of course ignite. Plastic in building cladding has claimed so many lives already, just the IDEA of wrapping a building in highly flammable material is preposterous. However, this is exactly what is required in many Western countries these days, you know, mostly because of the Holy Climate Church and a decreasing scientific literacy ... ignorance of crowd-pleasing politicians.

I remember driving my Jeep TJ up onto the roof parking lot at the Algo Mall back in Dec. of 2005. It was a cold night with slushy snow on the lot and I remember backing it up to a spot across from the entrance door ...just as I stepped out onto the roof parking, a pickup truck had come up the slope leading to the parking and crossed the lot in front of me heading for a closer spot near the door of the building ..as he was he passed by I felt the parking lot shake under my feet ..I remember thinking "oh my gawd"! It was a very unsettling feeling so much so that I jumped back in the Jeep and quickly drove down to the ground level parking. Years later I heard about what happened to it and it really bothered me that I never mentioned it to anyone ..would they have listened to me? There must have been others who experienced similar shaking as I did, I don't think the driver of the pickup would have noticed it unless he stepped out of his vehicle like I did just when someone drove across the lot ..maybe they considered it normal occurrence. I wasn't from Elliot Lake, it was my first visit. I did return to the mall on occasions when I was up for shopping but I never would park on that roof ever again! I do remember the buckets and mops and the cordoned off areas near the bottom of the escalator ...wish I had said something ..but to who?? ..in retrospect the ones running the mall would have buried it.

Why don't you see more 30 year old cars on the roads in Canada? Road salt -> corrosion. Rooftop parking lot full of cars dripping salt water. I suspect that many parking ramps in snow country would show similar damage ........ if they managed to survive that long.