Column Buckles ( 

For those that think the machine operator is very slow you've got to appreciate on a confined site like this any catastrophic collapse of the building, like what almost happened, could result in massive pieces of debris falling or bouncing outside of the site. A chunk of debris hit the perimeter fencing at one point and shook it quite hard. That shouldn't happen. That's why work has to proceed slowly and carefully. While there might not have been any pedestrians around there were plenty of cars etc and the demo crew seemed to have cordoned off one half of the road following the partial collapse so they must have felt there was a risk to people and passing traffic.

Good, experienced operator and great dust abatement system, it rained that day too.

I operated a P & H crane with a 130 foot boom swinging a 7 000 lb. Steel ball. Did that job for about one year before moving on to Tower Cranes. Very old buildings from the late 1800's were easier to bring down because they weren't full of rebar. The older steel beam supported buildings with riveted beams were a little more difficult. Unless the ball got dropped exactly at the joints, the rivets wouldn't shear. First I'd break the front of the building wide open to see better inside. Then I'd punch a hole through all of the floors so that the debris would fall all the way to the basement. Next would be to start enlarging the holes until the walls could be knocked in. The technique was not to let too much debris pile up on any floor because that would cushion the impact of the dropped ball. Columns were a little more difficult to destroy. You'd position the ball at the point of desired impact, swing hard right or left so that the ball would swing in a straight line, and then swing hard back to the column. Had to watch out for chunks of concrete flying off the column. Almost got hit a couple of times when a softball size piece of concrete came flying into the crane forcing me to duck. Something like that can kill you. The company never did install a heavy duty screen that I kept asking for. It was dangerous work if you weren't careful and had your plan of action well thought out. Once the buildings got low enough for the excavators to chew on, the crane was no longer needed unless a clam bucket had to be used.

Not quite sure why i was expecting catastrophic collapse. Glad though that it did not happen.

Simple. No comments. No music. Big thank you.

Chomping a girder like that. WOW !

all things considered, i thought it was a pretty respectable recovery after a clearly unexpected event.

I find this demolition really amazing. They have took the back off the building, but the face that is within a few feet of an open road they have left till last. You can see cars going past and workers in hard hats in the road, within a possible collapse area, directing traffic! Surely that side of the building would have been sensibly removed first when the rest of the building was affording that wall support? Instead they have removed the rest of the building, risking the remaining wall collapsing into the road causing carnage, and almost certainly killing the workers directing the traffic.

Where exactly does the 'girder buckles' in this video? Looks like all the girders are buckling at one point or another.

I like the name of the company. I don't see my name very often

Can u imagine how much that machine rocks, with that hefty counter balance of a boom 😂

I would think they would take down the brick facade first since it goes up after the steel. But otherwise a legit demo with those people standing in the road within striking distance.

what ??? why are workers walking idly by in the fall zone of the building !??

Wouldn't it have been easier to demolish floor by floor? Start at the top and work down.

Those High Reach Excavator's can be a real trip. They flip easy too. Cool video...

This is like playing reverse Jenga. The operator is looking for something to cut or pull that will give him the biggest collapse of the building.

As someone that does this for a living, reading the comments gives me heart burn. This operator has a huge challenge of using a single cylinder shear to demolish a building that is a little too tall for his machine. It is a horrible type of building to demolish under these circumstances, but you use what you got. Imagine grabbing one part of the building and trying to squeeze it with a small opening on that shear, and out of the corner of your eye you can see the whole building shaking above you. You know if you mess up the whole damn thing is falling on you or someone else. You can't see much from the cabs of these machines and if they have cameras they are about useless, the perspective is off and just makes you disorientated. If the image is clear at first, it takes about 5 min before the water and dust cover the lens anyway.

The title of the video is Very Misleading. Nothing dramatic. The girder that “buckles” is better described as a change in load distribution that causes the structure to sway as supporting members are removed from the system. It’s NOT unexpected plastic deformation of a structural component as the title might suggest. Let’s be genuine; it’s a building being demolished. ALL Beams, Columns and Girders that are Not sheared will buckle.

As soon as that wall started to buckle at 0:30 the operator should have weakened the far wall enough to prejudice a lean away from the road. This would allow for controlled removal of the roadside wall. Any counteraction to the roadside wall moving would have brought the entire structure toward its own center. Spending all that time dragging all the debris over the side is a huge waste of time.

I can’t believe they let traffic and people that close!

Visibility on a machine like this has to be pretty terrible.

i like that "shear"!..... goes thru a steel i-beam like a hot knife through butter!!!

I have no idea why that was unexpected, the steel framework inside was clearly bolted through the brick. Cut the steel loose and the wall follows it. Duh.

I'm not sure that cars should've been allowed to continue to drive by while this was going on, seeing the errant chunks of debris bouncing out almost onto the street.

Those cars are a bit close , behind the excavator ?

pretty neat fanagleing of the claw. but why wasn't all those good windows saved? glass isn't cheap. is it?

I'm not an expert but If this was my only option I would try to knock off all the brick and concrete off to a bare frame.Just my opinion.

I miss the old days of swinging a demo ball.. Now that was exciting

That’s one long reachy boi

What was the name/purpose of the building? Its proportions seem odd.

The implosions are so much more exciting and interesting.

This is exactly like watching Me make a cup of tea when I'm drunk (slightly less glass breaking though)..

I can't believe they left their trucks there

Nothing fancy. Just pure, brute force.

2:00 A piece falls off and hits the no entry sign

No surprise there. Buildings fall apart during the demo!

I thought they demolished buildings from the top down, not from side to side.

Can any qualified person tell me if the operator has cameras on that rig ? Seems if not , the guy is operating with the Braille method !

Was he on a time delay bonus scheme ? spent 90% of his time waving it about

they need to put some cameras at different angles to give the guy more visibility. This was beyond frustrating to watch

Ah ha! Just scrolled down the introduction - you aren't anything to do with the demo company eh? No one but NO ONE in the game calls any lump of iron "a girder" - that went out about the time this building was constructed. A girder could be timber or metal back then - the name refers to what it did, its position and how it supported what was above it and not what it was made from. The COLUMN that gives the shear driver a bit of a fright was having a hard job holding itself up before work started - looks as though this area has had quite a good fire going at one time and the guy on the grapple is chewing through some concrete floor for a while and it's delaminating at the rebar - the site is a death trap!

Exit sign was salvageable until 15:54... My truck would be no where close, it would be around the block...

Is there a camera on the end of the arm ?

That’s a cool job ripping things down

A lot of experts comments (arm chair experts)

That cop and worker are too close. 1 lane should be stop. Korea new 3 days ago. A situation same as this. The building they were demolishing fell on a passing bus. It fell across than down.

Kind of close to that vehicle below... not my truck!

I didn't see anything happen, is this a legit video?

Love the keyboard warriors, AKA armchair demolition experts in this case. I reckon the operator was moving at a good pace, considering he/she wouldn't be able to see fuck all from the ground. You could expect the buildings fascia to fail when you're removing all the structure behind it. Still, good save, crew were on the ball, you can see after the failure that a crew member was waving traffic through, so clearly all traffic was stopped at the moment of failure, & the operator knew what to do immediately. So good work all round. As others mentioned though, I wouldn't have the balls to be walking around next to the building though, nor would I have my vehicle parked below. That's just tempting fate!

Very skilled operator!

Looks like a dinosaur. Pretty cool.

The fencing/hoarding on that site is a joke. Any debris falling from the demolition process shouldn't be able to make it to the pavement, vehicles driving past the front are in danger of an impact from falling objects. This is in the US, I thought they had strict OHS laws there?

Glad I didn't go to the office that day! Hope they saved my spider plant.

Many comments, so I will just say the cut looked odd.

A remote control giving the claw operator the same vantage point as the camera operator.

that's the coolest roach clip ever !

I fail to see anything wrong with this video

The operating engineer must get paid by the hour b/c he is seemingly operating “blind”, with the remains of the lower levels screening his view of the infrastructure higher up? Does he have a spotter that should be directing the movements if the claw?

Gosh there seems to have been a terrible mix up. We don't want the building destroyed after all so is there any chance you can maybe put it back together?

It’s called controlled demolition and it may be dictated by the cities planning and zoning commission because of all the nearby buildings to the uninformed.

He is not doing a fine job, should have taken out floors 3 and 4 completely before he starts on floor 2.

Not a real smart way to demo-should have worked from the top floors down in a more organized method.Also, no way should have there been workers and traffic on the street-had the wall fallen outwards, it would have come down on them.

Great job. Was expecting an accident, a bit clickbaity. They brought that building down perfectly.

what the fuck ?? if that western wall falls, it will hit the road way and the traffic managers directing traffic ???? cant they not see that ?

It should have been demolished internally starting at the top floor with 2 square metre opening on each floor dropping materials to ground level and loaded out and when safe to do so drop the remaining building

Just as it was getting good, The video ended...

2:02 brick hits sign

ого страшно , я предположил что здание рухнет , тем рабочим на дороге надо уйти подальше ((

The video stops when they realise it's the wrong building, and that they'll have to repair it.

Where is this? From the voices in the street and the car horns it seem to be in the U.S., northeast U.S., what city? Thank you for the video.

Good job

Doing a good job. And he also separated the ferrous metal into one pile, aluminium into another, asbestos into a third, and finally concrete & bricks into a general waste pile :-). I presume that it is a blower machine in the bottom left of the site, designed to reduce dust in that direction - if so, why, because there doesn't appear to be any obvious problem in that direction.

Notice they're using their crappiest, old machine... just in case the building flattens it : )

Hope nobody’s in the john

Must priced that job on a day rate.

You have blokes walking around ..your not trained properly to be in a big machine

This is just sad to witness.

Pushnot pull

Man tries to commit suicide by pulling building on top of himself,but fails totally.

Muy buena

Buena obra

WOW THERE ARE A LOT OF EXPERTS HERE.....I WISH I KNEW AS MUCH AS YOU ARM CHAIR DEMO OPERATORS. HAHAHA

How come when I do something like that, I get charged with vandalism ??😆

Always an hero that's better 1 false move the front of building goes into the road the driver and site manager goes to prison if some 1 is killed is it worth it he as also got to recycle as there is only that machine on site. The debris that is falling is also going close to the demo boundary wall were there are pedestrians so carefully is key in this demo fair play to the drive good work

A good demolition company would have removed everything from the building, including windows, piping and all so it could all be recycled.

Brought to you by Murphy & Murphy demo ltd ..................

start at the top down dummies...

New operator. Put on demolition sites to gain operating skills away from workers as on construction sites.

This is like the "Seinfeld" of demolition videos...nothing happens!

Looks like the crane operators first day on the job

less than good.

Godzilla would have done a better job

That wa my favorite place to go to I will miss it.

What a waste of time money and equipment!

i used to work in demo,we would put steel ripping cable around the building connect to a digger,and pull the building down, this guy is taking to long.

Heck I was suppose to take those good windows before you smashed them all up. Oh well cannot win them all. HA

Always feel these buildings should be taken down With a little more care so more of the materials can be reused.

Terribly run. These clowns will kill someone.

so what was supposed to happen at :30. I didn't see anything. earned a thumbs down honey

Fire the operator, losing time and money. Must be costing a fortune just to run that machine.