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This NYC disaster changed city laws - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to share three stories that are all
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: about people who were just trying to do their jobs,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and they ended up facing an extremely unexpected and dangerous
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: professional hazard. But before we get into today's stories, if
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in story format... and you've come to the right place
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three,
• 0:23
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• 0:26
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• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the supermarket's checkout line and tell them you're just going
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to go get one more thing. But then just take
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: your time strolling through the store and just leave. Also,
• 0:37
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• 0:43
  Speaker 1: let's get into today's stories. On the evening of July 27th, 2000,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a 35-year-old woman named Esther Penn held a folder full
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  Speaker 1: of financial documents as she rode an elevator down to
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  Speaker 1: the basement level of an old office building where she
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  Speaker 1: worked in New York City. Esther was exhausted because it
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: was really getting late. I mean, the workday had actually
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: officially ended hours ago, but today had been abnormally busy,
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  Speaker 1: and so she had had to put in overtime to
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  Speaker 1: finish everything up. So the company that Esther worked for
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  Speaker 1: was a very prestigious financial firm that managed investments for
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  Speaker 1: really wealthy clients. And it was Esther's job to make
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  Speaker 1: copies of stock certificates and other important financial documents and
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  Speaker 1: file them away in a big vault in the building's basement.
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  Speaker 1: And today, there had just been a lot of files
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  Speaker 1: to get through. And in fact, this was going to
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  Speaker 1: be the latest that she had ever had to go
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  Speaker 1: into the vault, like during a workday, since she had
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  Speaker 1: been working here. She'd been here two years. I And
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  Speaker 1: so she was just sort of over it. But now,
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  Speaker 1: as the elevator came to a stop and the doors
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  Speaker 1: opened and Esther stepped out onto the basement level, she
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  Speaker 1: reminded herself that she was almost done here and she'd
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  Speaker 1: be able to go home soon. Like, this is not
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  Speaker 1: that big of a deal. And so she walked over
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  Speaker 1: to the vault entrance, which was this massive two-ton metal door.
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  Speaker 1: Since employees went in and out of the vault constantly,
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  Speaker 1: this door was kept unlocked during the day and just
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  Speaker 1: swung wide open as this huge metal door And right
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  Speaker 1: now it was standing wide open as usual. So Esther
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  Speaker 1: walked through the open door into this massive vault. You
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: got a picture. This is like a portion of the basement.
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  Speaker 1: You're not walking into like a little closet that they
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  Speaker 1: keep safe. This is like a massive walk-in vault with
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  Speaker 1: rows of filing cabinets. I mean, there's all these cabinets
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  Speaker 1: on the walls. I mean, this is a serious space.
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  Speaker 1: And so she goes in there and she walks to
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  Speaker 1: the very far end of this vault and where the
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  Speaker 1: filing cabinet she needed was. Esther stayed there for over
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  Speaker 1: 15 minutes, carefully filing the copies she had made. And
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  Speaker 1: then when she was done, she turned and hurried back
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  Speaker 1: toward the vault's exit, excited to get out, go upstairs,
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  Speaker 1: and go home. But when she got to the massive
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  Speaker 1: metal door, it was no longer open. It was closed. Now,
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  Speaker 1: at first, Esther was just surprised that she hadn't heard
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  Speaker 1: this door shut. I mean, it's a big metal door.
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  Speaker 1: If it's going to you know, somehow shut, she would
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  Speaker 1: hear it, right? But she's thinking, okay, you know, I'll just,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I'll just push it open. Yeah, it's a huge door,
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  Speaker 1: but assuming it's not locked, you can just push it
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  Speaker 1: right open. But when she tried to open it, she
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  Speaker 1: quickly became quite alarmed because it was locked. For a
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  Speaker 1: little bit, she just panicked and thought this is going
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to be a mistake. It's not really locked. Like I'm
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: not really trapped inside of here, but after a few minutes,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: desperately trying to open this door and not being able to,
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  Speaker 1: because if it's really locked, you can't unlock it from
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  Speaker 1: the inside. That point, after a few minutes of sort
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  Speaker 1: of realizing the situation she was in, she just stood
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  Speaker 1: back and her mind is reeling. Like, what does she
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  Speaker 1: even do? I mean, number one, she was just completely
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  Speaker 1: bewildered at how this had even happened. I mean, she
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  Speaker 1: and her colleagues came in here all the time. And
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  Speaker 1: no one, at least in her mind, had ever, even briefly,
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  Speaker 1: gotten locked in before. Like, this didn't happen. But then again,
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  Speaker 1: she knew she was working in the vault later than usual,
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  Speaker 1: like the latest she ever had. And so Esther wondered
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  Speaker 1: if maybe the door was on some sort of auto-lock
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  Speaker 1: timer to keep the vault safe after hours. Like, maybe
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  Speaker 1: this just happened automatically. But however this had happened, Esther
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  Speaker 1: knew she was in a bad spot here. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it was late. Her colleagues were gone for the day.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody was coming in tonight to save her. And so
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  Speaker 1: the earliest anybody would open this vault up again would
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  Speaker 1: be tomorrow, which meant she'd be stuck inside of this
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  Speaker 1: metal vault all night. And so Esther, it's like she's
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  Speaker 1: panicking here. Like she doesn't want to stay in here
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  Speaker 1: all night. This is like a nightmare. And so she
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  Speaker 1: lunged at the door and she's banging on it and
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  Speaker 1: she's yelling for help, but she knew it was It
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  Speaker 1: was useless. I mean, even if anybody was still at
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  Speaker 1: the building, no one's going to hear her through this door. Like,
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  Speaker 1: she's stuck. So finally, she stepped back and she took
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  Speaker 1: some calming breaths. And then she began looking around the
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  Speaker 1: room for, you know, some kind of solution, some kind
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  Speaker 1: of panic button, maybe. But, you know, one, there weren't
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  Speaker 1: any windows. They're in the basement. This is a vault.
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  Speaker 1: There's no other way out besides this door. But then,
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  Speaker 1: she saw on one of the vault walls was a
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  Speaker 1: fire alarm. And when Esther saw that, she almost laughed
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  Speaker 1: with relief because now it didn't matter that nobody could
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  Speaker 1: hear her screaming. She could just pull the alarm and
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  Speaker 1: immediately alert both the fire department and the building's own security.
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  Speaker 1: And so therefore, people would come down here, she'd be rescued,
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  Speaker 1: problem solved. So Esther ran over and without any hesitation,
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  Speaker 1: she pulled it. And right away, the alarm starts wailing.
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  Speaker 1: It's so loud. And Esther, she She walks over to
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  Speaker 1: the vault door, and she's covering her ears. It's so loud.
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  Speaker 1: But she's thinking, you know, any minute now, the fire
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  Speaker 1: department or somebody's going to show up. They're going to
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  Speaker 1: open this door. And so she's just relaxed at this point,
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  Speaker 1: generally speaking. Alarm's going off, and she's just waiting for
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  Speaker 1: the door to open. But several minutes goes by, and
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  Speaker 1: the alarm's still going off, but the door doesn't open. Like,
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  Speaker 1: nothing's happening. And as several more minutes went by, and
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  Speaker 1: still the door wasn't opening... Esther went from being relatively
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  Speaker 1: calm to really starting to panic again. And then finally,
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  Speaker 1: it's like the panic was growing so much inside of her,
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  Speaker 1: it was like almost unbearable. Like she was really feeling anxious,
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  Speaker 1: almost like uncontrollably so, to the point where she found
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  Speaker 1: herself hyperventilating. Meanwhile, a lieutenant with the New York City
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  Speaker 1: Fire Department hopped out of a truck in front of
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  Speaker 1: a towering office building in lower Manhattan. his department had
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  Speaker 1: just gotten an alert that a fire alarm had just
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  Speaker 1: been pulled inside of this building's basement vault. And right
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  Speaker 1: the second, you know, as the lieutenant is standing outside
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  Speaker 1: of this building on the sidewalk, he didn't see or
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  Speaker 1: smell any smoke, but he obviously needed to go into
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  Speaker 1: the basement to be sure. So he hustled into the
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  Speaker 1: building with a few members of his team behind him
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  Speaker 1: to see what was going on. And soon after that,
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  Speaker 1: the lieutenant and his team were downstairs in the basement,
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  Speaker 1: standing in front of the closed vault door, while the
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  Speaker 1: building security guards tried to help them get inside of
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  Speaker 1: the vault. And as the lieutenant waited, he actually finally
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  Speaker 1: did smell something, because to this point, he still is
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  Speaker 1: not seeing any sign of a fire or anything. But
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  Speaker 1: he started to smell something, except it wasn't smoke. He
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  Speaker 1: actually couldn't quite place what the smell was, but it
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  Speaker 1: stirred this feeling inside of him that something wasn't right here.
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  Speaker 1: And then, suddenly... He had this overpowering urge to cough
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  Speaker 1: and his head started to ache. And all at once,
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  Speaker 1: he realized exactly what that smell was. And he screamed
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  Speaker 1: at the security guards not to open that vault door.
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  Speaker 1: So Esther was right to think that by pulling the
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  Speaker 1: fire alarm, that would be the fastest way to call
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  Speaker 1: attention to herself in this situation. because there were many
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  Speaker 1: very important files and documents in that vault. And so
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  Speaker 1: the alarm system that she triggered was programmed to notify
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  Speaker 1: the fire department and building security instantly. And they were
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  Speaker 1: known to have a very fast response. But in addition
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  Speaker 1: to quickly calling attention to authorities to come to the vault,
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  Speaker 1: this alarm system did another thing very well that Esther
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  Speaker 1: didn't know about. This alarm system also activated something that
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  Speaker 1: was designed to put out any potential fires inside of
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  Speaker 1: the vault. And so in addition to sending out an
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  Speaker 1: alert that would presumably bring in the fire department to
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  Speaker 1: put out fires in addition to building security, the alarm
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  Speaker 1: that Esther pulled also released a bunch of carbon dioxide
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  Speaker 1: into the vault, which sucked all the oxygen out of
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  Speaker 1: the room. Fires need oxygen to burn, right? And so
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  Speaker 1: by dousing the room with carbon dioxide, it should extinguish
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  Speaker 1: all the flames. But humans need oxygen too. And when
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  Speaker 1: Esther started having trouble breathing and hyperventilating, it was not
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  Speaker 1: because of panic. It was because literally the room she
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was in, the air was being sucked out of it.
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  Speaker 1: Carbon dioxide is actually odorless, but an artificial scent is
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: sometimes added to these fire suppression systems. And so that lieutenant,
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  Speaker 1: what he was smelling outside of the vault... What he
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  Speaker 1: couldn't quite place at first was that artificial smell, which
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  Speaker 1: he eventually realized was a signal that there is a
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  Speaker 1: dangerous chemical inside of this room. and they should not
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: go inside. They need to get a hazmat team to
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  Speaker 1: go in and handle this. But unfortunately, when they did
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  Speaker 1: get the hazmat team and they went inside the vault,
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  Speaker 1: Esther was dead. She had suffocated to death. Esther's family
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  Speaker 1: filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the building's owners,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and and the companies responsible for the vault and alarm system,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: which did not have the appropriate warnings on them, and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: were outdated. The outcome of that lawsuit was unfortunately not
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: publicly reported on. It may not seem like much, but
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: when someone goes the extra step, it really makes a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: positive impression. Whether it's someone taking an extra minute to
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: actually help instead of just pointing me in the right
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: direction or a neighbor bringing in your trash cans while
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: you're away. Those small gestures really stick with you. And
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that also goes for hiring. Great candidates can also go
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the extra step as a way to stand out from
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the others. And right now, You can see who did
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Ballin. ZipRecruiter has a
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: new feature that shows you the most interested, qualified candidates first,
• 11:18
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• 11:21
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• 11:26
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• 11:31
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• 11:34
  Speaker 1: based on G2. Try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: will go the extra step for your job. Four out
• 11:41
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• 11:43
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• 11:47
  Speaker 1: at ZipRecruiter.com slash ballin. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash ballin. ZipRecruiter. Meet
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: your match on ZipRecruiter. Around 5.30pm on Monday, May 16th, 1977,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: 39-year-old David Toomey stood outside the Pan Am building, which
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  Speaker 1: was a 59-story skyscraper right in the center of New
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: York City. David checked his watch and he sighed. The
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: shuttle he was supposed to take to the airport had
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: just arrived, but now he had to wait for this
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  Speaker 1: shuttle to unload and then he, along with a bunch
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of people that he was in line with, could then
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: finally get on and then Finally, he could make his way.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: He was just thinking, I'm going to be late here. Now,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: David knew by taking this shuttle at this time, he
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: was sort of cutting it close to get to the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: airport and catch his flight on time. But he wasn't
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: too worried yet because he had paid a lot of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: money to take this particular shuttle to get to the airport.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, anytime he needed to get to the airport quickly,
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  Speaker 1: this is the shuttle he would take because it was
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: very high end and much faster than the regular bus
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: or train. And, you know, it always got him there
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: on time, at least so far it had. And so
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: he's seeing this potential delay and he's thinking, it'll be fine.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'll get there. I'll have enough time. I'll catch my flight.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And so after a few minutes, all the folks who
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: had been on the shuttle when it arrived, they made
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: their way off. And the shuttle just stayed running as
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it waited for David and the people he was in
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: line with to make their way on. And so as
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: David and this queue of people he was with began
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  Speaker 1: marching their way onto the shuttle... David, who was a
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: lawyer and he spent a lot of time in the office,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you know, head down in books and in court, he
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: just took a moment to, you know, look up and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: look at the sky and soak in this last bit
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  Speaker 1: of the outside time he would have before basically hours
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of travel where he'd be back in the books. But
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: as he was staring upwards, having this moment of solace
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: before a kind of miserable day, he heard this loud
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: metallic groaning sound. followed by a deafening bang, and then
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  Speaker 1: before he could even begin to figure out what was
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: going on, he saw there was this large piece of
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: metal spinning through the air directly above him. At the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: same time this was all happening with David and the
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: folks over at the shuttle, on a street next to
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the Pan Am building, a woman named Ann Barnacott stood
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: at a bus stop waiting for the next bus. And
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: all around her, the sidewalk was packed with the city's
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: rush hour foot traffic, with people leaving work and hurrying
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: to get to their next thing. I mean, there's people everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: And Anne, I mean, she's part of this rush too.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: She's trying to get home. But she still had at
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: least another hour on the bus before she'd finally be
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: back in the Bronx. And it might even be longer
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: if traffic was bad. But, you know, despite how miserable
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: this commute was, she did it every day. So she
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: was used to the slog. But now, as Anne waited
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: for the bus, she suddenly heard all this screaming. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: then there was a series of sounds that just didn't
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: make sense. There was this booming noise, then there was
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a series of sharp cracking noises, and then a roaring sound,
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  Speaker 1: and then what sounded almost like thousands of tiny little
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: bells being rang all at once. Instinctively, she just threw
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: her arms up over her head as everybody around her
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: started running around in a panic, and Anne, she was
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: just trying to protect herself, you know, just standing there
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: shielding her head and her body, but it didn't help.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Because pretty much immediately, her arms and her head exploded
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: with sharp pain and she fell to the ground. And
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the last thing she would have seen as she laid
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: on her back, having no idea what was going on here,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: was that the air itself appeared to be glittering. What
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: happened to Anne and to David outside of the Pan
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Am building would go on to change travel in New
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: York City forever. Because the shuttle that David paid all
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that extra money for was actually a very large helicopter
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: that took off from the top of the Pan Am building.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: The company that operated it was focused exclusively on always
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: being able to get their usually very wealthy customers to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the airport as quickly as possible. And so to do that,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to save time, whenever they landed the helicopter on the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: top of the Pan Am building, for example, they always
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: left the helicopter running at full bore. while its passengers
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: got off and on. It was highly efficient, but also
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: pretty hard on the helicopter's machinery. And that particular afternoon,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: right before David got on board, one of the helicopter's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: supporting struts, which holds the landing gear in place, gave out.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: This immediately caused the helicopter, which again is going at
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: full bore, to tip over onto its side. And when
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: its still whirring blades hit the ground, they snapped off
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and went spinning uncontrollably around the top of the roof,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: slicing through the line of people waiting to board. Then
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the props went over the side of the building and
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: fell 59 stories. And on the way down, they smashed
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: into the building's windows along the way and caused this
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: lethal shower of glass rain and metal shards to rain down.
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  Speaker 1: on all the folks down below. Four people on the roof,
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  Speaker 1: including David, were killed by the out-of-control helicopter blades. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the fifth fatality was Anne, who was down below on
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the ground, and she was killed when one of those
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: helicopter blades fell onto her. As a result of this tragedy,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the rooftop helicopter pad on the Pan Am building was
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: immediately closed, permanently. And New York City, ultimately, again, as
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a result of this tragedy, banned commercial helicopter landings on
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: all skyscrapers. On the morning of March 26, 1940, a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: 35-year-old farm worker named Millard Taylor was ran through a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: heavy rainstorm towards this old fruit warehouse in Santa Rosa, California.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: His teeth were chattering from the cold and he was
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: really eager to get to shelter here. So Miller didn't
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: actually live here in Santa Rosa. For most of the year,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: he lived on this indigenous reservation in another part of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the state. But he, along with thousands of other workers
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: from all around the country, came to Santa Rosa each
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: year to make money during harvest season. And like most
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: of those workers, When Millard was in town for the harvest,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: he was essentially homeless. He was forced, because he had
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: nowhere else to go, to sleep inside of this large
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: encampment along the railroad tracks. Now, most of the time,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: this less-than-ideal living situation was actually fine. It did get
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: pretty cold at night this time of the year, but
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Millard and the other workers had created tons of makeshift
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: fire pits along the tracks that kept them warm. And
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: these fires basically burned all night long since it was
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: so easy to find lots of quality firewood nearby. And
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: so all the workers just took turns collecting it and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: adding it to the fire. But whenever there was like
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a really bad storm like this one they were in now,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: building a fire wasn't an option. And camping outside suddenly
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: became miserable. And so just now there was this big
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: flash of lightning in the sky right as Millard reached
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the warehouse. But instead of going into the warehouse to
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: seek shelter, he ducked down underneath it and began to
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: crawl under the warehouse. So the warehouse itself was locked
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: because it was the main storage space for the prunes
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that they were here to harvest, and so they didn't
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: have access to it. But the warehouse itself was this
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: 200-foot wide structure and it was raised up off the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: ground by these big support posts. And so there was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: space underneath it that was actually big enough that you
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: could sit up underneath this structure. And the company wasn't
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: using it. It was just off the ground to presumably
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: protect the prunes, but Millard and the others, they would
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: go under there like to relax and to seek shelter
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: from storms. And so Millard, he crawls down below and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: he takes a spot underneath this warehouse alongside several other
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: warehouse workers that were also waiting out the storm. And
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: they had a jug of wine they were passing around just,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you know, drinking and just waiting for this thing to pass.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But this storm just did not let up. The rain
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: kept on coming and the wind and thunder and lightning,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it just kept getting more and more intense. And so
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: hours later, Millard and the others were still waiting out
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: this storm underneath the warehouse. But now, in addition to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: just being freezing cold and out of wine, they'd begun
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: to notice that the water outside that was pooling from
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the storm had begun coming down underneath the warehouse, like
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: it was flooding all around them. At the same time
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: this was happening, Just a few feet away from the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: warehouse in one of the fruit company's offices, an employee
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: named Gordon Boyd was inside doing some paperwork when he
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: suddenly heard this loud crack and then a rumbling sound.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: He stopped what he was doing, and as soon as
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the noises stopped, he ran outside into the storm to
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: see what was going on. And when he got out there,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: he was completely shocked to see that the warehouse... had
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: completely collapsed. Now, Gordon, who was shocked by this, the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: first thought he had is like, this doesn't make any sense.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: It was raining really hard. This was a bad storm.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: But there had been plenty of actually way stronger storms
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: in this area before, and the warehouse had always been fine.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: So it's like he has no idea how this storm
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: could have caused this to happen. But more than that,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: he just had no idea what to actually do about it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: So he just stood there, gaping. But then he looked
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: off in the distance towards where the workers' encampment was,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and he noticed there weren't any fires burning like usual. Now,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: he knew, obviously, there's a storm. It's very difficult to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: make a fire in a storm. But the workers would
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: do that sometimes. And the fact that there were none,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: no fires burning whatsoever for all the workers that lived there,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that was sort of unusual. And it made him realize
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that very likely, most or all of the workers had
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: very likely sought out shelter somewhere else. And he knew
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: one of the places they would go for shelter was
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: underneath that warehouse. And so he snapped his vision back
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to the debris of the wreckage of the warehouse. And
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: he noticed a single human hand sticking out of the debris.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: So the seasonal workers in Santa Rosa, they relied on
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: those fires to keep them warm at night and to
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: cook food. And there were thousands of workers, so there
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was like a constant need for lots of quality wood
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to keep said fires going. And it would turn out
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: many of the workers got this wood from the fruit
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: warehouse where Millard had been taking shelter with the others.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: For basically the entire harvest season, the workers at the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: encampment had been going under that warehouse and taking parts
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: of its wooden support system to use for firewood. the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: workers were specifically taking out the building's sway braces, which
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: run horizontally and are used to help support and stabilize
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the floor above. They don't look essential, but they are.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: And by the time this particular storm rolled through, so
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: many of those braces had been removed that when Millard
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and the others took refuge down there, the structure was
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: incredibly weak and it just could not withstand the weight
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of of the hundreds of tons of prunes on the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: floor above, and the battering winds from the storm and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the rain. And so eventually it caused it to collapse.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: When Gordon saw the human hand coming out of the rubble,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: he immediately called the sheriff, who put together this huge
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: rescue effort that was launched pretty much right away to
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: pull anybody out of the rubble. And they would find
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: all nine workers who had been under there, including Millard.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: But they had all been crushed to death. Ultimately, these
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: deaths were ruled to be an accident and nobody was
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: found criminally negligent. Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of it in the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: comments below. And remember, we have a whole playlist of
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Places You Can't Go episodes ready for you to binge
• 24:41
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• 24:44
  Speaker 1: them a watch. All right, until next time, see ya.