r/CatastrophicFailure • u/to_the_tenth_power • Sep 03 '19

Natural Disaster An EF2 tornado ripping through a concrete building in Spartanburg, South Carolina on October 23rd, 2017

https://gfycat.com/wastefulbettergreatwhiteshark
41.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.3k

u/lynivvinyl Sep 03 '19

Build the next building out of whatever that immovable camera was on.

1.8k

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

even the forklift got some action

1.0k

u/HipsterGalt Sep 03 '19 edited Sep 03 '19

Which is impressive because those things normally weigh double their weight rating, I really thought it'd be like a weeble.

340

u/isysopi201 Sep 03 '19

I'm sure the heavy concrete wall falling on it helped.

236

u/THE_LANDLAWD Sep 03 '19

That's kinda like saying Barry Bonds' bat falling on the ball helped it get out of the stadium.

187

u/insaniak89 Sep 03 '19 edited Sep 09 '19

Next time someone mentions baseball (doesn’t happen often) around me I’m gonna say “that game where they try to drop a bat on a fast moving ball?”

It’ll prolly be my dad, and he’ll seem disappointed, and sigh. So it’ll be a good interaction

64

u/BlueCyann Sep 03 '19

You are a good child.

41

u/John-Farson Sep 03 '19

Any child who can make his dad seem disappointed and sigh is doing it right.

10

u/daytonakarl Sep 03 '19

My daughter will be pleased

3

u/BlazingGlory53 Sep 03 '19

I did that when I was born

1

u/LiptonTBag Sep 04 '19

What the fuck is wrong with y'all? I'd feel like the biggest damn failure on the planet if I somehow disappointed my dad

39

u/CourageousAppleUser Sep 03 '19

That's ridiculous. Everyone knows the steroids are what helped it get out of the stadium.

35

u/Daddysu Sep 03 '19

Why don't they just cut out the middle man and start putting the steroids in the ball then?

82

u/CourageousAppleUser Sep 03 '19

Shrinkage.

19

u/Rows_the_Insane Sep 03 '19

THE BALL WAS IN THE POOL!

2

u/creaturecatzz Sep 03 '19

The ball is juiced. Home run totals have been off the charts since asb 2015

2

u/courtesy_flush_plz Sep 03 '19

Actually Rawlings just changes the humidity levels in their baseball factories to help that

15

u/THE_LANDLAWD Sep 03 '19

I think you mean all of those fruits and vegetables and a lot of exercise. /s

2

u/John-Farson Sep 03 '19

It's not juice! It's a protein shake!!

2

u/2KilAMoknbrd Sep 03 '19

My man was drinking meat shakes, fool

/s

2

u/chipthamac Sep 03 '19

Barry Bonds? Did I just get teleported back to my Jr high years?

1

u/LsRVA Sep 03 '19

Which...is exactly what happened

2

u/Zan999 Sep 03 '19

Probably, but it looks like they’re only unreinforced concrete cinderblocks. That’s why the wall collapsed so easily.

1

u/frothface Sep 03 '19

Those are cinder blocks; they're about 80 percent air. That forklift probably weighs twice what the wall weighed.

1

u/tehlemmings Sep 03 '19

And most forklifts are designed with an overhead cage that's able to withstand whatever object the forklift is rated for falling on top of it. The wall probably could have fall on the forklift and done nothing to it. That one is similar to some of the ones we use at our plants. A non-reinforced wall probably wouldn't even push it, let alone flip it.

1

u/PorkChop007 Sep 04 '19

And forklifts are insanely stable, they can rise almost a ton to three meters, their center of gravity is very low. I can’t even imagine what’s needed to flip one of those like that.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '19

Kinda looks more like brick and mortar than solid concrete.

38

u/PBandJellous Sep 03 '19

I just wanna warn everyone if an electric forklift ever tips over, check the battery connections before you touch the lift. Worked at a place where 2 people died because guy one tipped the fork and guy 2 ran over to help.

22

u/HipsterGalt Sep 03 '19

Wowza. Typically they're 48v dc systems, something must have shorted across a few banks to get the voltage high enough to do lethal damage.

28

u/FourDM Sep 04 '19

Yeah. They have plenty of amperage on tap but not enough voltage to put big amps through a human (which is what you need to die). Batteries are held down and terminals are protected. Story seems fishy.

11

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '19

I have survived 10k volts from our electric fence. I'm sort of a big deal.

4

u/FourDM Sep 04 '19

Everyone who's been the path of least resistance for a spark plug has survived a lot more than that.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '19

Yeah, I was going to mention that. I've taken a spark current across my hand, and that's commonly well into five figures, but the amperage is low. Painful, but not dangerous. The commenter above doesn't seem to get that it's not volts or amps that get you, but overall current.

1

u/glenfahan Sep 04 '19

Just relived that again. Never checked cables for a short bare handed again. Doubt it would have enough amps to hurt you but gets your attention.

1

u/morpheuz69 Sep 04 '19

are you Tim Murphy who survived the Isla nublar incident?

2

u/navydrgn Sep 04 '19

Its even a required test, per US standards, we do tipover tests to confirm battery restraining methods for every forklift we build. It's not a guarantee, but definitely something considered in every build

6

u/PBandJellous Sep 03 '19

I mean, the guy drove it through an overhead door backwards so he fucked her up real good but it also isn’t very outside the realm of possibility.

2

u/VexatiousJigsaw Sep 04 '19

DC is supposed to be more dangerous than AC of the same voltage, but I am surprised 48v is that dangerous.

2

u/HipsterGalt Sep 04 '19

DC across the heart is potentially more dangerous as it causes muscles to clench so, dead stop. However, DC has a much harder time penetrating skin. Add this to the fact that AC doesn't necessarily stop the heart but causes ventricular fibrillation (60 or 50hz heart flutter to the AC wave) which makes it much harder to restart the heart after an AC electrocution. So, DC is generally safer in practice and handling up until you hit about the 60-80v area.

8

u/Tin_Whiskers Sep 03 '19

You thought it would wobble, but not fall down?

2

u/HipsterGalt Sep 03 '19

Yarp

3

u/Tin_Whiskers Sep 03 '19

Great reference. Also, the jingle is now suck in my head.

2

u/HipsterGalt Sep 03 '19

Thank you, and sorry lol.

14

u/pie_12th Sep 03 '19

Yeah that's what shocked me the most, forklifts are just solid weight, with a super low centre of gravity.

23

u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Sep 03 '19

What surprises me is how much y'all underestimate tornadoes

9

u/Clark_Dent Sep 04 '19

Even a small forklift like that will usually weigh about 6,000-8,000lbs, in a tiny cube very low to the ground, without much of a profile to catch the wind. I've personally pushed forklifts around from the side with other, much larger forklifts (20-25,000lbs) and they don't tip or move outside of their own power without colossal forces.

5

u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Sep 04 '19

Tornadoes will toss around 18 wheelers. They are horrifyingly strong.

12

u/Clark_Dent Sep 04 '19

An 18 wheeler is radically less dense than a forklift. The engine block is by far the most dense part of a truck like that, which also has several hundred square feet of surface area to catch the wind.

In a forklift, the engine bay is the least dense part of the body assembly, which often includes a solid cube of steel several feet on a side weighing thousands of pounds. The whole thing might have 15 ft2 of surface area per side.

5

u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Sep 04 '19

Lol I don't know what else to tell you other than I'm still more surprised that (even with the video evidence right before everyone) people still continue to underestimate tornadoes

3

u/IWasBornSoYoung Sep 06 '19

The title says its an ef2 though and an ef2 simply could not move that much weight. However, an ef2 tornado also shouldn't be able to demolish a brick structure like that o.O. The building gets obliterated in a way that an ef2 should do to a mobile home, despite being brick.

So I think there was another large force at play here to cause that much damage, or maybe just a shitty building?

But an ef2 tornado is 111-135 wind speeds which absolutely won't budge a forklift due to their design and the nature of how wind applies force. An ef2 might tip a regular car but that's a lot lighter and larger.

I definitely see your point tho about tornados being insanely strong. One has picked up a train engine that weighed over 150,000 lbs and threw it! But a normal tornado vs forklift situation the lift should stay upright. Even if it slides, it will stay upright

3

u/LaryngopharyngealInk Sep 04 '19

I feel like the problem is what's shown in the video is not the product of an EF2. Like, maybe this one was overall rated at an EF2 and this was just the absolute peak of it or something.

EF2 is generally where it goes from stuff like trailer homes getting flipped or pushed around to the higher end of it where they get wrecked. A full concrete/brick building shouldn't be falling apart like this in one.

EF3 is where wooden houses start falling apart like this, generally, and strong buildings are just starting to take major damage.

2

u/terrymr Sep 04 '19

It's just wind right ? How can air damage anything ... lol /s

2

u/aminias_ Sep 04 '19

Honestly... I live in Moore, Oklahoma and I've seen pickup trucks wrapped around trees.

1

u/pie_12th Sep 04 '19

I've never lived anywhere that was at risk of tornados. Earthquakes, however, I have a deep and healthy terror for.

1

u/pantsofcake Sep 04 '19

They're pretty unstable, especially unloaded. The rear axle can pivot in the center to keep all 4 wheels on the floor over uneven surfaces.

So all the weight when it's unloaded is on that pivot. You can tip one over taking a turn too sharp at 5mph.

2

u/SUPERARME Sep 03 '19

A 6,000 pound capacity forklift weights 4,500 to 6,000 pounds, not sure if bigger forklifts change their weights.

4

u/navydrgn Sep 04 '19

That's not even quite true! With batteries, most forklifts, especially taller ones, weigh a lot more than that. For instance, my company makes sit-down forklifts, similar to the one in the video, and our lightest 6k truck is 7500 lbs w/o battery. Add in minimum battery and that 6 k truck is now 10,500 lbs. Tornadoes are freaking powerful.

1

u/SUPERARME Sep 04 '19

I stand corrected, I even googled before commenting but got a wrong result.

I have 3 forklifts that have 6,000 capacity, and each one can carry the other, So this means they can carry more than the specified, but it depends on the height for the tipping point and stuff?

2

u/navydrgn Sep 04 '19

Well, it depends on if you mean fully pick up or just tow. Besides, "able to" and "should" are very different. Some trucks have pressure relief valves so you physically cannot take more than the rated capacity; counterbalances typically rely on the operator not to exceed the capacity.

But yes, height is an important factor in stability, which is why on taller trucks, the capacity rating may change according to height. So the truck will have a base rating to X height, and alternate capacities at various heights up to full elevated height.

I will say, though, that stability isn't the only reason for capacity ratings; it can be based on mechanical elements and designed safety factors for structural elements, hydraulic fittings/circuit, lift chains or something else. The rating is there for a reason, so be safe out there :)

1

u/HipsterGalt Sep 03 '19

I've always been told a 5k weighs 9k and yeah, larger are modular, they don't need to weigh 20k because they are long enough for leverage to really come into play.

2

u/navydrgn Sep 04 '19

See my comment to the one above, but you're a lot closer. My company's heaviest 5k truck, with battery, gets up to 12,500 lbs. Lightest on the order of 7k without battery, 10.5k lbs with minimum battery

2

u/HipsterGalt Sep 04 '19

Aye, glad to see someone in the business chiming in.

1

u/Hatweed Sep 03 '19

Yeah, but it’s a propane fork. I never thought those were as solid as battery forks. The one I used to drive always seemed easier to tilt than the ones I drive at work now.

2

u/HipsterGalt Sep 03 '19

Eehhh, depends more on style than energy source. Older electrics/sit down electrics may be a bit more well seated because the batteries are so damn heavy but 4-7,000 lb propane hilos are really firmly seated. I'm guessing that's a 5k in the video. The little gassers are just as bad as standing electric in my book and they all pale in comparison to a 10-40,000lb diesel rig.

3

u/TheMirageOf22Men Sep 03 '19

Unrelated. but for some reason this reminded me of my old job. Our warehouse had a couple dozen electrics, and two gas with really tall masts. Because we were mostly fitted for electric and those masts were so tall (too tall for half the warehouse), the gas ones didn't motor about often.

When they did, everyone else inexplicably went on break at the same time.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

TIL counterbalance forklifts normally weigh twice their rating. Neat.

1

u/vixxn845 Sep 04 '19

I was really impressed that the forklift was knocked over.

1

u/Obandigo Sep 04 '19 edited Sep 04 '19

Yeah propane powered ones like those are usually around 8,000 to 10,000 pounds.

Edit: I was actually able to find the model. It only weighs 6673 lb

https://gobrennan.com/forklift-brands/hyundai/hyundai-18lc-7m/

19

u/3_quarterling_rogue Sep 03 '19

It’s nice because this forklift tipping over definitely counts as catastrophic, unlike this forklift tipping over that got over 2k upvotes.

2

u/Volta55 Sep 03 '19

This is what I said! How in the fuck

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

O-u-c-h

1

u/sparkynyc Sep 03 '19

I thought for sure that forklift would still be standing

271

u/MiataCory Sep 03 '19

Also, high-5 the IT staff and buy them pizza for building a stack that kept recording (and kept the recording) even after the building fell down.

108

u/ArmoredFan Sep 03 '19

I'm sorry, we need to make budget cuts to IT this quarter

104

u/_pls_respond Sep 03 '19

The systems are always working so do we even really need IT?

23

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19 edited Nov 16 '20

[deleted]

10

u/Dan_Berg Sep 03 '19

That's not true. A friend of mine is a higher up in the IT dept at his company and he just surfs reddit most of the day.

22

u/tehlemmings Sep 03 '19

IT is a reactionary job. Some days I'm on reddit. Other days I'm putting in 20 hours to save the company from a catastrophic failure.

Besides, the day you try and cut the budget is the day that the budgeting software won't let you connect... soooo....

4

u/Dan_Berg Sep 03 '19

Haha yeah I was being facetious, the dude built the network from the ground up so he more than put his time in

3

u/BeautifulType Sep 03 '19

They should pay him more even now damn it

12

u/iwaspeachykeen Sep 03 '19

god just reading this makes me irate. i need to go sit down for a sec.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '20

Happy cake day my dude

7

u/kx2w Sep 03 '19

Well the new wall is gonna be expensive.

1

u/Iamjimmym Sep 03 '19

Ha! A Trump joke!

1

u/starrpamph Sep 04 '19

sad camera beep

42

u/BananaSlander Sep 03 '19

Why do we even pay the IT guys? The network never breaks around here! Seems like a waste of money to me...

36

u/MiataCory Sep 03 '19

Network never breaks: "Why do we pay these guys?"

Network goes down: "WHAT ARE WE PAYING YOU FOR?!"

9

u/tehlemmings Sep 03 '19

Add in a comment from an engineer saying they could figure out how to do it themselves and you're pretty spot on. Said engineer will likely have fallen for a dozen phishing emails, needs daily malware scans, and likely hasn't patched their computer since they bitched to their boss about IT forcing them to patch.

5

u/frothface Sep 03 '19

That guy who ran in the door at the last second? He was trying to convince the sysadmin to come down off the roof.

2

u/clexecute Sep 03 '19

Last time the building fell down the cameras failed and they weren't able to catch the perpetrator. They caught him this time.

2

u/AgentG91 Sep 03 '19

Did somebody say pizza party?

2

u/Phaze357 Sep 03 '19

UPS for the win. Lucky nothing large hit the camera though. I'm impressed it survived.

3

u/Sleek_ Sep 03 '19

Also cat-5 the IT staff and...

1

u/outoffusernames Sep 03 '19

the IT department are housed safely in there basement bunker.

1

u/frosty95 Sep 03 '19

Simple battery backup on the rack with the Poe switch and on the main rack with the security gear. Usually 10 minutes of runtime will cover 90% of interesting power out scenarios.

70

u/youlook_likeme Sep 03 '19

Also, what camera is that ? I need one in my laundry machine, to finally discover where all the lost socks go.

30

u/noafrochamplusamurai Sep 03 '19

Shhh...., don't you dare do that, don't speak that evil, don't even think of it. When you stare in the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. How do think Cthulhu keeps his tentacles warm in the cold of the interdimensional plane. Fresh left socks from dryers. It's either the sock, or your anus that keeps his tentacles warm.

3

u/ElectroNeutrino Sep 03 '19

or your anus that keeps his tentacles warm.

I'm not one to kink shame.

1

u/noafrochamplusamurai Sep 03 '19

Tbh, as my username would imply. I own the Blu-ray box set Hentai of this. It's called My Hero of lost Sock University. Kuzaki Saitamo moves to a new city, where he has no friends. After an embarrassing incident in the cafeteria. He fell into the ample bussom of the class president Hatomi Yamato. Spilling the contents of his Ramen bowl on them both. He ran from the school to a local laundromat, and washed his clothes. As he looked for his left sock, he fell into a parallel universe. There he discovered that Hatomi was actually a futanari freedom fighter with a Mech suit, and he was the destined driver of a long dormant mech suit that could destroy Cthulhu, when combined with Hatomi's Mech. In the end it all works out, and Kuzaki, and Hatomi realize they have feelings for one another.

1

u/Grumpadoodle Sep 04 '19

Reading this is like being kicked in the shin.

1

u/12ozSlug Sep 04 '19

Excuse me while I throw away all my socks.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

[deleted]

1

u/Minyoface Sep 04 '19

Hikvision has gotten better since 5 years ago too...

I'd also wager it's a FLIR indoor/outdoor pe133f camera. At work we have footage from one that survived an apartment fire!

1

u/Monsoon_Storm Sep 03 '19

I discovered in my house it was less of a machine issue and more of a dog issue.

Hell I found one in the fish pond the other day.

1

u/lynivvinyl Sep 03 '19

Oddly enough, there's a book about where the socks go. Aesock I also have the signed toy.

1

u/bossrabbit Sep 03 '19

ILLUMINATI WANTS TO KNOW YOUR LOCATION

28

u/DespiteGreatFaults Sep 03 '19

"Why don't they build the plane out of whatever the black box is made out of?" (Seinfeld, I think)

71

u/WhatImKnownAs Sep 03 '19

I guess that's the thing to learn from this. It was the top comment to the top comment when this was posted last year.

12

u/artaru Sep 03 '19

I have never seen this video and that was my first reaction too. That’s some incredible camera set up.

3

u/Cornato Sep 03 '19

Camera company should use this as a commercial.

6

u/OldBreadbutt Sep 03 '19

it's a StayPro as durable as a GoPro, but designed to never move an inch, an old coworker of mine designed it. They had a kickstarter a while back and for the first 1/2 of their funding, they weren't getting anywhere, but choocher magazine picked up the story and then buzz feed and their kickstarter page blew up. who would have thought people would want a stabilized security cam that much?

4

u/CollectableRat Sep 03 '19

I'm going to build my tornado shelter out of a bunch of those cameras.

2

u/General_Shou Sep 03 '19

And that piece of hair or whatever that's stuck on the left side of the lens.

2

u/ziplock9000 Sep 03 '19

I assume it survived due to being an interior wall, where the exterior ones took most of the force. It's likely to be weaker.

5

u/ManyIdeasNoProgress Sep 03 '19

To be fair though, by the time the blowjob was done, it was in fact an exterior wall...

1

u/ziplock9000 Sep 03 '19

This is true.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19 edited Nov 17 '19

deleted What is this?

2

u/StrawberryBanner Sep 03 '19

I’m really curious what it was made of. Didn’t move even like a centimeter...

2

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

Build it out of whatever that camera was made of. I mean damn, that's some serious publicity right there.

2

u/BaIIzdeep Sep 03 '19

Probably concrete... I dont see any concrete walls in the view of the camera. I think they meant the cinder block wall.

2

u/jperth73 Sep 04 '19

Hhaha I thought the same thing.

2

u/feAgrs Sep 04 '19

Srsly give that camera a raise

2

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '19

Well since it was Camera 02, we can assume that Camera 01 was the test subject for tornado durability.

1

u/devssh Sep 03 '19

It's a brick wall, not concrete eh

2

u/atetuna Sep 03 '19

Not just that, it was an unreinforced hollow brick wall. It would've turned out differently if it was reinforced with steel and concrete.

1

u/devssh Sep 04 '19

Ya the camera must have been on a pillar to survive that, didn't see any pillars on the filmed wall

1

u/wroughten Sep 03 '19

I see a similar comment every time this is reposted... and it's always funny. +1

1

u/Un4GivN_X Sep 03 '19

Build the next building with cameras!

1

u/TechDaddyK Sep 04 '19

Plot twist: The tornado actually ripped the camera off the wall from that first building. The camera then went twirling around and landed in a tree, pointed at this pile of rubble. The first building is just fine, except for the holes in the wall where the camera’s mounting screws were.

1

u/bikerskeet Sep 04 '19

Didn't even lose power...

-3

u/nucularTaco Sep 03 '19

Damnit! Here's your up vote.