And that’s why I’m afraid of tall buildings

Posted on January 25, 2005 by Gene

I was watching a show on History Channel about engineering disasters just now; I was shocked to see that one segment was of a disaster that I actually saw in person.
It was the collapse of one of the Skyline Towers, located just a short distance from my house. It was 30 years ago, and my godfather Harry lived on George Mason Drive just a couple of blocks from the tower. We watched the construction going up from his front yard.
I remember as a kid looking up the hill at the collapsed tower, noting that the floors had fallen down and looked like Venetian blinds; the one apartment tower had suddenly become two — the collapse happened in the middle of the building when supports were removed from uncured concrete, the floors pancaked down. 14 workers died, and it took weeks to recover the last body.
It is astonishing that I didn’t flash on this 3 years ago on September 11; it’s a visual that has been in my head for 30 years and every time I drive by the building, that’s the image I see. And I will never, ever be able to set foot inside that building… I often wonder if people who live there now have any knowledge of what happened when it was being built. I can’t imagine they have photos of the tragedy up in the lobby…

[Read an interesting journal of significant fires, collapses, and other incidents responded to by the Arlington County Fire Department, of which my dad is a veteran. I've heard dozens of these stories from him over the years.]