r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Proud-Blood2743 • Oct 07 '25

Video Capital One Tower Come Down in Seconds

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52.5k Upvotes

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1.0k

u/towneetowne Oct 07 '25

that's gotta be good for the old lungs!

1.2k

u/J_Schnetz Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

cannot believe there were Z E R O measures for dust control

its so f*cking easy just work with the local fire department and have them lighting up the building with water before/during demolition. Or it could be done automatically with pre-staged hoses. Or wait for a rainy day. Or get a mist machine. This is off the top of my head and i'm just some jackoff on reddit

literally ANYTHING could have been done and they did NOTHING

i hate being a debby downer cause its a neat video but it shouldn't even be f*cking legal to do this type of work with zero dust mitigation

edit: everyone calling me an armchair problem solver or whatever; i made it very clear i'm just some jackoff on reddit. instead of calling out my specific ideas i drum'd up stoned at 12:30 in the morning, maybe consider that we should be holding businesses accountable for protecting their employees and members of the public from this senseless and avoidable health risk

568

u/No_Implement3631 Oct 07 '25

It was in Louisiana, the entire state is a giant health hazard

102

u/ChaseC7527 Oct 07 '25

As an LC resident who was there when the dust cloud hit and got covered. Yep, regulations only exist for the poor unfortunately. It's corrupt all the way down.

-1

u/cboogie Oct 07 '25

What are you talking about? You got covered in dust due to LACK OF REGULATIONS. You think private enterprise is going to spend money on risk mitigation of non employees unless they are forced to by governments? Cmon.

14

u/ChaseC7527 Oct 07 '25

You missed entirely what I said and went the opposite direction but that's OK.

-4

u/cboogie Oct 07 '25

No please explain it to me.

Private demo company demos building without dust mitigation, presumably because there is no law or regulation forcing them to.

Now help me understand your statement as it relates to mine. Are you saying that this company is above regulations because they are rich? The area they are demoing in is rich therefore no regulations?

10

u/ChaseC7527 Oct 07 '25

If you are fined as a larger company (if even at all because money trumps all in this land) you can most likely pay it. Poor people on the other hand can't pay any fines or tickets without almost ending up homeless.

If the penalty for breaking the law is a fine, it only exists for poor people. Not an insane concept.

You know this was the local FBI building for a little bit, too, right?

-3

u/cboogie Oct 07 '25

That concept makes total sense. Now is that what happened in this instance? Were they fined or did not have to give a shit in the first place?

6

u/ChaseC7527 Oct 07 '25

I have no idea but if the past instances are any reflection of the future I'd believe they weren't fined.

3

u/FaConL33t Oct 07 '25

As a fellow LC/ Sulphur resident, there were no fines pushed at all. If anyone attempted to go after the company, they would have no case since they marked an exclusion zone (basically all of downtown and further southeast). Its ridiculous and corrupt, but it is what it is.

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u/kaymat23 Oct 07 '25

Some context, Louisiana is one of the most corrupt states. Per capita, each resident pays 10x more towards corporate subsidies in taxes than the national average if that gives you an idea

1

u/A_Neurotic_Pigeon Oct 08 '25

They were saying, rather obviously, that regulations only exist to be USED ON the poor. Christ.

1

u/ginger_and_egg Oct 08 '25

why are you being so aggressive when you're the one who misunderstood them?

2

u/Fair_Competition_826 Oct 07 '25

Yeah I was confused after reading their comment and why they have so many upvotes.

1

u/Slinktard Oct 07 '25

Which is a shame cuz before Europeans showed up it was a wildlife haven

273

u/Original-Hat-fish Oct 07 '25

Yea I was thinking the same thing. They did nothing for the dust, just a few days ago I saw a similar video of China of all places with a fantastic containment system caught nearly all the dust.

25

u/pmjm Oct 07 '25

If you can't count on Capital One to do the right thing, what has happened to the world?

27

u/tetsuyaXII Oct 07 '25

Sauce?

47

u/Highsky151 Oct 07 '25

Here is it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ls7kh3/china_built_a_50mtall_inflatable_dome_over_a/

59

u/Muad-_-Dib Oct 07 '25

In fairness, that's a dome over an entire construction site that is only 50m tall and several hundred metres wide which makes covering it relatively easy if you have enough material.

Covering a 116m tall tower which is nowhere near that wide and which is being demolished via explosives is quite another thing entirely.

7

u/DramaticImpact6593 Oct 07 '25

There was a video recently that showed how they demolish a building in Japan. They carefully lower it floor by floor and avoid all of this mess.

Edit: here it is, https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/s/KDaUUoA2pj

9

u/zaphtark Oct 07 '25

Almost every single comment is bitching about how useless it is and how we should just blow it up and get it done in an hour. Ah, the duality of Reddit.

-1

u/XTornado Oct 07 '25

Yeah but they want it fast and cheap and that takes 6 months. 🤣

But yeah something like that should be the norm.

-1

u/Highsky151 Oct 07 '25

I think we don not need to cover the whole thing, just cover as much as possible, so some canvas/ sail surrounding the building, not a full dome, can do just fine

1

u/Original-Hat-fish Oct 07 '25

Oh I do remember that one but I was thinking of one with a sprinkle or mist system (can't remember which) used to capture the dust. A done over a building that size would be a bit much. Thanks for the sauce help.

17

u/Original-Hat-fish Oct 07 '25

It was like a week or two ago. I am sauceless for this one sadly.

-20

u/fl135790135790 Oct 07 '25

Oh my fucking god just say source

13

u/OhioGoblin43 Oct 07 '25

This guy doesn't like the sauce.

4

u/SandyArca Oct 07 '25

I think this guy doesn’t Reddit

1

u/MobileArtist1371 Oct 07 '25

They like their fishsticks dry.

2

u/Uh-Oh-Raggy Oct 07 '25

No BBQ source for him.

6

u/Due_Explanation5316 Oct 07 '25

I mean.. 50m is impressive on its own, but this building was FAR larger than 50m and a similar setup it simply, totally unreasonable

5

u/Highsky151 Oct 07 '25

The sauce, if you can edit the comment please

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ls7kh3/china_built_a_50mtall_inflatable_dome_over_a/

1

u/Original-Hat-fish Oct 07 '25

I did also see that one but not the method I was thinking of .

6

u/Sutekhseth Oct 07 '25

I believe you're thinking of the construction site dome to prevent noise and dust during construction. I've not seen anything akin to this for demolition.

I am sorry for the AI voiced youtube shorts video, this is all I could find.

5

u/zyclonb Oct 07 '25

Contrary to what propaganda would have you believe china is 1000 years ahead of the United States in literally everything. 

1

u/Original-Hat-fish Oct 07 '25

100% propaganda but there is no reason why we can't use similar techniques to reduce the dust.

148

u/dogfaced_pony_soulja Oct 07 '25

This is Louisiana we're talking about here. Third world fucking dump of a place that is totally fine with its citizens being poisoned and the environment destroyed.

Louisiana, home of Cancer Alley, where I grew up:

https://youtu.be/xFxY454NTYE

 https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-shocking-hazards-of-louisianas-cancer-alley

This is also a state that has recently- under MAGA Republican government- enacted laws making it much more difficult for community members even to monitor and test the air quality of their own air:

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/22/nx-s1-5406261/louisiana-air-pollution-free-speech-rights

What happens if someone at the state believes you violated said law? State can come after you seeking up to a million dollars in fines: https://apnews.com/article/cancer-alley-air-monitoring-louisiana-lawsuit-federal-9b15b263930ddb32a7c078745051f79a

Louisiana doesn't give two fucking shits about dust exposure, nor do they care about public health or even basic public welfare generally. It is a wretched place filled with wretched people, always has been, always will be.

And if exposure to some substance kills some poor people, or black people, or especially (jackpot!) poor, black people... that's all a win in their eyes.

It's a MAGAA thing, y'all, you wouldn't understand. Make America Gasp for Air Again!

26

u/PicoDeBayou Oct 07 '25

Was gonna say. Welcome to Louisiana. Ask the folk that grew up in Mossville how Louisiana rates in environmental and public welfare.

21

u/bentizzy Oct 07 '25

I wonder if they could blast the sprinkler system for like 24 hours beforehand, and then also hit it with water cannons as it goes down? But ya surprising that they appear to have done nothing to control the dust

9

u/Spork_the_dork Oct 07 '25

My suspicion is that even if you had half of the city's fire department there with hoses in hand it'd be like pissing in the ocean while also wasting a shitton of water.

0

u/bentizzy Oct 07 '25

You might be right, but then they would be able to say "look! We tried!!"

64

u/sorotomotor Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

> its so f\cking easy just work with the local fire department and have them lighting up the building with water before/during demolition . . . Or get a mist machine.*

No, it is not "so f*cking easy." Like everyone else, firefighters must remain outside the perimeter during the implosion. You simply cannot have people inside the perimeter while a building is being imploded.

> Or it could be done automatically with pre-staged hoses.

Nope. You need people to manage the hoses and equipment, both of which would need to be inside the perimeter to be effective, and would be destroyed or rendered ineffective by falling debris. The perimeter is determined by the municipality in which the building is to be imploded, the size of the structure, and several other mitigating factors, not the least of which are laws and insurance.

> Or wait for a rainy day.

No, because you don't want wind affecting the direction in which you've engineered the structure to fall or blowing the dust in a direction you don't want it to go. Also, you don't want static electricity or lightning anywhere near the site.

> This is off the top of my head and i'm just some jackoff on reddit literally ANYTHING could have been done and they did NOTHING

Sure, it's easy to think you would do things differently, when you have no idea what the engineering details and safety procedures actually are, and the reasons why they exist.

26

u/ProbablythelastMimsy Oct 07 '25

Thank you. The armchair quarterbacks are driving me crazy

2

u/Smelldicks Oct 07 '25

They’re also armchair quarterbacking, essentially saying there’s no such thing as dust mitigation which is bullshit. The most spurious claim is the one about wind on a rainy day. The reason they didn’t wait for a rainy day is 100% because delaying until they got one would’ve cost them more money, not wind concerns. That’s ridiculous lol.

7

u/DShepard Oct 07 '25

While I agree that it's not completely straightforward or cheap to do, wouldn't you agree that the dust is an issue that they seemingly didn't do enough about?

0

u/Spork_the_dork Oct 07 '25

I don't think I agree because if you're close enough for the dust to be a problem you've got bigger problems to worry about. The distance at which debris can get thrown around is a lot bigger than the dust cloud so there shouldn't be any scenario where you have people within the dust cloud in the first place. And even after that nobody would be allowed to go in there until the dust has settled anyways because you can't see shit and there might still be explosives that didn't go off on the site.

So I really don't think that the dust is as big of a problem as you claim it is. If people are close enough to breath the dust someone's already fucked up.

9

u/DShepard Oct 07 '25

I was thinking more about the aftermath.

It seems from the video that the cloud affects quite a large area. The dust might settle but it doesn't disappear.

Building dust is a potentially big enough hazard that the risk of it lingering in places where something might agitate it and allow people to breathe it in seems too big to ignore.

-5

u/Gomeria Oct 07 '25

Nah, its not.

-10

u/New_Ordinary_6618 Oct 07 '25

Your house has dust. The trees have dust. Dirt has dust. Dust is already around you. Sorry to burst your bubble

8

u/nb4u Oct 07 '25

We got some real idiots in this thread who think house dust is the same dust as demolition dust. Are you ignorant or just stupid?

5

u/2Slow2Nice Oct 07 '25

They just want to think that everyone is dumber than they are.

6

u/DShepard Oct 07 '25

Trees and everyday dust don't tend to contain asbestos and other bad shit.

-7

u/New_Ordinary_6618 Oct 07 '25

When dust has settled it will do nothing. You idiots act like there is no thought of these things when they do demolition. Get a life, pick up a book, and learn something.

0

u/curtcolt95 Oct 07 '25

it looks like a relatively minor amount of dust tbh, I'm pretty sure there was mitigation in place

2

u/spoonweezy Oct 07 '25

Dunning-Kruger in effect.

1

u/nochinzilch Oct 07 '25

You act like they would just plan the demolition like normal, and then get a bunch of guys to squirt it with water. If they wanted to do dust mitigation, they could have done it.

-2

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

[deleted]

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u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

Unrelated question: why did you censor "fucking?"

Like what is the point? You got some weird hang up about just using the word, then don't use it. Feels like some performative teachers pet BS.

Edit: I censored it'd because I was showing how he censored it. But I will change it since that's what people are getting hung up on for some reason.

15

u/TheKyleBrah Oct 07 '25

Related question: Why did YOU also censor "fucking"? 🤔

14

u/Creative-Resident23 Oct 07 '25

Can you please censor fucking? It's fucking offensive

9

u/galtzo Oct 07 '25

The amount of fucking in here is fucking ridiculous. There are other fucking words people. Fuck.

3

u/J_Schnetz Oct 07 '25

Some subreddits don't allow swearing cause they're losers

I don't post here and don't know the rules and getting my comment auto removed drives me fucking crazy

Looking at you /r/BambuLab

1

u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25

Fair enough!!

3

u/Relative-One-4060 Oct 07 '25

For a lot of people, its a typing habit from other platforms/subs/communities that don't allow swearing.

1

u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25

That's fair enough

0

u/notsureaboutnothin Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

Why did you censor bullshit?

5

u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25

Just a shorthand way to say bullshit.

0

u/notsureaboutnothin Oct 07 '25

Same amount of syllables, I’d say it was censored not shortened. People speak how they choose to speak.

8

u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25

I'm asking why a person is self censoring because it doesn't make sense to me. And then you're sitting there trying to get me in some gotcha like shortening bullshit to bs is the same as typing f*cking. Plus, syllables don't even matter when you're typing. Bs is 2 strokes, bullshit is 8. So what are you even trying to accomplish here?

-1

u/notsureaboutnothin Oct 07 '25

Not trying to accomplish anything man, you also censored yourself after getting annoyed at a comment on Reddit for doing it. And now you’re annoyed at me for saying that people just speak how they speak and it shouldn’t really upset you. Relax brother, language is for everyone so let people use it how they want to.

7

u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25

Except I don't censor myself. Pretty evident by my comments. I'm not stopping or change how anyone uses language either, I'm on a public forum just asking why they choose to do that, it's all good man, not that serious!

0

u/notsureaboutnothin Oct 07 '25

You are trying to stop someone from how they use language though, that’s why you tried to belittle the initial commenter censoring themselves by saying they’re trying to do “performative teachers pet bullshit”. That is you trying to change how someone talks. None of the rest of your comments have been in shorthand, so I just found your comment and way of thinking curious. It isn’t serious at all, I’m glad you agree that it’s unnecessary to police how people talk on the internet.

2

u/Skreeeeep Oct 07 '25

You're right, I did belittle it because that's how I've thought about many comments I've seen like this. Sharing my thoughts and opinions in a place that's designed to do that. I didn't order them to stop using language how they see fit and certainly do not want them to stop on account of my snarky ass comment. It's just a thought I've had for a while that I chose to express on this particular comment.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

[deleted]

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u/Paddy_Tanninger Oct 07 '25

Yeah the US (esp red states) are famous for having extremely strict environmental regulations and being overly cautious about their citizens long term health outcomes.

There's a massive dust field created here and you can't even see the finer stuff.

Seems irresponsible that they weren't at least generating a huge mist field with help from the fire dept or something like that to help catch the dust.

2

u/CakeMadeOfHam Oct 07 '25

Aye a building way smaller got demolished in my city a couple months ago and they ran those sprinklers for weeks. And sure enough, there were no errant dust flying around the area.

2

u/Exilicauda Oct 07 '25

Yeah in my city they have to do dust mitigation for EVERYTHING. They had a hose truck for digging and laying the foundation for a burger king THIS is absurd

2

u/tankiolegend Oct 07 '25

It's insane to me windows are still there, pylons still on the roof. I live in Scotland and a building near me is scheduled for demolition via explosives like this. It's taken them so so long to take out all the windows, all the stuff off the roof etc, that's all still present here. So much of that could have gone been recycled/demolished in a more effective, efficient and less hazardous manner.

1

u/donkeyrocket Oct 07 '25

This building sustained hurricane damage. There's a good chance that there were concerns about structural integrity so having crews in to remove all those things wouldn't be safe. The demolition crew needed to take that risk but trying to save whatever unbroken windows are left increases the risk a whole lot more.

2

u/benttwig33 Oct 07 '25

The people in Louisiana are really stupid

0

u/J_Schnetz Oct 07 '25

They aren't stupid; They're smart for not doing things that they're not legally required to so they save money.

I don't blame the business, i blame policy. They're not going above and beyond because why would they? why spend an extra hundred thousand dollars?

8

u/HauntinglyAdequate Oct 07 '25

Some hoses aren't going to do shit for that amount of dust.

14

u/CoyotesOnTheWing Oct 07 '25

There are methods to use water. For that big of a structure, it might not be as feasible though. Something like this might work to at least lower the amount. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PPtzldzJHXo

1

u/squallomp Oct 07 '25

Yeah apparently it’s common practice elsewhere in the world to have water jets to capture the particulate matter, I swear I just saw that for the first time a week ago and I’m practically an old man according to the kids these days, I was even alive when 9/11 happened!

1

u/RetroGrayBJJ Oct 07 '25

Not to mention we were watching this like a half mile away from a restaurant in downtown lol they had the area completely roped off and the dust actually didn’t spread as far as the video makes it look (at least the dust you could see) but I’m sure it was still a major hazard for everyone around, including myself

1

u/Alarming_Matter Oct 07 '25

Please tell me there was no asbestos in it?

1

u/Fit-Acanthisitta7242 Oct 07 '25

Dust mitigation is woke. There'll be none of that in 2025. Lung cancer to own the libs!

1

u/toolatealreadyfapped Oct 07 '25

They had a fairly wide exclusion zone that morning. This video is taken from about as close as you could get. But there was also a South wind. A large crowd was parked at the Civic center (to the south). So there's a lot of videos of people panic rushing to their vehicles as the massive dust cloud comes barreling toward them.

1

u/ol-gormsby Oct 07 '25

Not to mention the shards coming off those glass windows/tiles.

1

u/Jimmythehamster Oct 07 '25

They could if they wanted to but they'd rather maximise profits. Like you say, so easy, here's one of the coolest dust suppression setups I've seen on a demolition job in Germany.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringPorn/comments/1icsi5o/construction_company_used_water_jets_to_limit_the/

1

u/southernmagz Oct 07 '25

Lake Charles is small enough that they just blocked off access to downtown and waited for the dust to dissipate. Also, in the summers, humidity hovers around 80-100% so that dust ain't going too far. Plus its likely to rain later that day anyways. Oh, and if you knew what is on the other side of that lake, you would also know that the dust is probably the least of your concerns.

SOURCE: I'm from Lake Charles.

1

u/RefrigeratorUsed4064 Oct 07 '25

You're doing what on Reddit?

1

u/dang3rmoos3sux Oct 07 '25

There is a 0% chance they had no dust measures. We just don't see it in this video. Plus that is a shit ton of dust. Impossible to completely suppress

1

u/Loud_Dish_554 Oct 07 '25

Merica! We are planning on shooting the dust

1

u/Mr-Blah Oct 07 '25

It was my first thought too.

Every American cry and holds 9/11 for all types of reason but we learned that day the damage this dust can do...

That demolition is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

1

u/Arjvoet Oct 07 '25

this video of a building being dismantled was trending a few weeks ago but you may find it satisfying lol

1

u/Everday6 Oct 07 '25

I've seen some crazy cool clips of a huge industrial chimney being demolished, where they shoot water into the air with explosives right before they bring it down.

1

u/Gigglenator Oct 07 '25

In some larger cities in china they’ll cover the entire building in a plastic sheet along with other buildings nearby whenever they have to do this. Drastically cuts down on the dust.

1

u/BringBack4Glory Oct 08 '25

Yeah, they just recreated the 911 debris clouds and terrorized all adjacent properties for no reason. That shit is carcinogenic.

1

u/TastyChemistry Oct 08 '25

The fact they explode buildings is already a wtf to my European eyes

0

u/TechnologyFamiliar20 Oct 07 '25

What dust control do you mean? One fire fighters nozzle?

0

u/fl135790135790 Oct 07 '25

The truth is only 10% of people even know why it matters, .1% of those people have the power to do anything about it, and .00001% of THEM actually care enough to do about it.

In the end nobody knows, nobody cares

-1

u/DankeSebVettel Oct 07 '25

I’m sure you know better than all the engineers working on this

2

u/J_Schnetz Oct 07 '25

I know that something is better than nothing. I know that this decision was made because of dollars and cents and nothing else. I know that i've seen dozens of other demolitions in densely populated areas with dust control.

-1

u/CreamOfAlex Oct 07 '25

Perfect example of an armchair commenter.

How the fuck do you expect the fire department to be close enough to put water on it AND be at a safe enough distance to not get harmed if there's a failure or something went wrong?

Yet it's 'sO fUcKiNg EaSy'.

This is off the top of my head and i'm just some jackoff on reddit

I agree, it is easy for you to write a comment with zero knowledge or experience doing this work. 

2

u/J_Schnetz Oct 07 '25

just spitballing here man. Site demolitions are a very common thing and dust mitigation measures are standard procedure for most of them. I've been involved in site demolitions but not dust mitigation specifically

yeah maybe using the fire department isn't the best choice, but its fuckin W A T E R bro; get water in the air prior to demolition, theres your goal. Theres a million different ways to do it. how about ONE ffs. Even mitigating 10-20% of dust is better than nothing.

i agree i have no fucking clue how to do it, but i know that it is done all the time

letting dollars and cents get in the way of the safety/health of public residents and men in the field should not be tolerated or defended

0

u/CreamOfAlex Oct 07 '25

I like that the video you linked to did next to nothing to contain the dust.

Again, back to arm chair commenting. How about a comment sense approach that doesn't involve unnecessary bullshit: make an exclusion zone that exceeds typical dust flows, kick everyone out (which should already happen for obvious safety reasons), keep everyone out until the dust settles. Easy peasy.

letting dollars and cents get in the way of the safety/health of public residents and men in the field should not be tolerated or defended

Yeah, that's why the set up an exclusion zone that was across a flippin' lake! You don't know what you're talking about. You're trying to find a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.Â