New York skyscraper had a 1-in-16 chance of collapse(cnn.com)
cnn.com
New York skyscraper had a 1-in-16 chance of collapse
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/15/style/citicorp-center-new-york-skyscraper
5 comments
I heard about this story recently and I was surprised how they got away with covering it up. IMO if a building has a chance of collapse you have a moral duty to tell the people inside it. And this whole thing was celebrated as a success story of admitting mistakes when they didn’t actually admit the mistake until it was already fixed.
What a scary situation (for once that word seems properly used here).
They weren't even taking into account things like uncertainty and fat tail events, which is the usual cause of complacency and disaster in these sort of situations. Take an average hundred year span and it was almost certain to collapse and kill thousands. Wow.
They weren't even taking into account things like uncertainty and fat tail events, which is the usual cause of complacency and disaster in these sort of situations. Take an average hundred year span and it was almost certain to collapse and kill thousands. Wow.
Credit for them being forthcoming and prepping evacuation plans and so on.
People recognizing "I don't like this information, but I have to do the hard thing." is what keeps society going.
People recognizing "I don't like this information, but I have to do the hard thing." is what keeps society going.
Veritasium covered this story recently.
https://youtu.be/Q56PMJbCFXQ?si=GmVD26JBJlot-dff
https://youtu.be/Q56PMJbCFXQ?si=GmVD26JBJlot-dff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Tower_(San_Francisc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/161_Maiden_Lane