real-life drama, and amazing characters. i'm contessa brewer. that's all for this special edition of "caught on camera." when you're in the danger zone, you'd better get out of the way fast. a landslide terrifies a small town in italy. a sinkhole swallows a street in hollywood. >> this looks like this could be really bad. >> and tons of rock threaten the lives of workers in tennessee. >> couldn't believe what we were seeing. >> in this hour, caution, hazards ahead.

"caught on camera: watch out." 30,000 tons of rock come crashing down onto a two-lane highway, threatening road crews working in the area. >> i looked up and the trees were coming down at the same time. we knew this was not your average slide. we didn't expect anything like that. >> that's something you'll never forget. >> november 10th, 2009. polk county, tennessee. it's a dreary, chilly morning, and wdef news cameraman is covering the story of a boulder that has fallen on u.s. 64. >> originally we were just going

to try to get pictures of a boulder in the road. we didn't know how big. we didn't know if there were any cars trapped underneath. >> when reporter bill mitchell arrives the road is closed to traffic and the tennessee department of transportation, better none as tdot, is using a giant hydraulic hammer to break up the enormous rock. >> it was huge. it was massive. it covered up an entire lane of the road. they were hitting this thing with all they had, and it was not cracking. you can see little splitters of rock fly up through the air. but as far as breaking that thing apart, it wasn't going anywhere. >> the 24-mile two-lane highway goes through a narrow pass called the gorge and is flanked by little frog mountain on the one side and the ocoee river on the other. the trip through the ocoee gorge normally takes 20 minutes, but with the road closed, the detour around the mountain adds more than two hours to the commute. >> there's a tremendous amount of pressure to get the road

open. but you have to do it and do it safely, though. >> steve jones, tdot's county supervisor, knows commuters want him to work fast. >> we got people that get mad at us when we stop for five minutes doing maintenance work. you can imagine what it was like for hours. >> according to jones, the area gets two to three rock slides a year, and when they happen, a tdot geologist is always called to the scene. >> it's her call to view the situation, to see whether we can get it safely done, get everything stabilized, make sure it's safe for the traffic to come through. >> vanessa bateman is in her tdot office when she gets a report of the rock slide. >> at that point it was clear it was an emergency. they had a rock in the road. the road is closed, everyone gets excited. okay, what is going on. >> it takes bateman about three hours to drive to the site. and when she arrives, there are

about 30 people working to get the road open. >> the emergency response folks from chattanooga were there. the county maintenance guys were there and then a construction company had been called to bring in the equipment that would be needed to break up the rocks that were on the road, get them off. there was one larger rock, and there was a news crew. >> we saw somebody from tdot show up. this young lady got out, and she walked up and looked at me and walked on past, and she glanced at the boulder. and then she went on over and talked to mr. jones. >> bill mitchell, a 30-year news veteran, has covered many rock slides during his career, but none this big. >> and then she came back over and she said, why don't you guys move back a little ways. she said, i'm hearing things up on that mountain that really unnerve me. i said, what are you hearing? she said, i'm hearing pops and snaps and things that make me believe some more debris may come down. so we moved back about 20 yards at that time.

>> i heard a sound that sounded like a car door slam. a really sharp rapport. i talked to steve, the county maintenance supervisor and said, have you heard this sound before? what's going on? he said, yeah, we did indeed hear this before. i said, we have to get all this construction equipment stopped. we have to hear what's going on. >> sensing imminent danger, they stopped the jackhammer, and moved the construction and news crews even further back. >> vanessa goes on and she takes a look at the mountain and then she walks back and she's talking to some of the tdot personnel. and all of a sudden they start walking back, she jumps in her car and drives to the other end of the road, and they're walking backwards. they go right past me. and you turn to them and i go, what's going on? what did she say? she said the mountain is going to come down. i said really? they said, yeah. she said run. >> fairbanks moves to safety but keeps his camera rolling when it

looks like nothing is going to happen. >> i just set up the camera and waited. and our reporter, bill mitchell, came up, and he said, you know, we probably ought to get back to the station. i said, yeah, you're probably right. but i don't know, she looked really convinced. i would hate to leave and then hear it had fallen down. we waited. we almost both gave up at this point. almost turned our heads away from it. then all of a sudden a big slab of rock came down. >> 30,000 tons of mountain crashes down on to the road. it takes only seconds for rocks, earth, and trees to descend on to the road where the men were just standing. >> you could almost feel it shake. all you could hear was that rumbling sound.

it sounded like something out of a movie. it sounded like cars crashing. rocks were hitting the ground. all of a sudden it stopped and everything came to a standstill. >> i was looking at this thing not believing my eyes and then the whole thing comes rushing down the slope. an immense amount of noise and dust. and you never see something like this in person. >> there's so much stuff going through your mind. to see rocks the size of greyhound buses come off the side of that mountain, when they hit the road we found pieces of the yellow line in the center of the river 200 feet away. the road was gone. when i watched those rocks come down, they didn't stop. i wonder, you know, if anybody had been out there, could we have ever found them. >> while the road crew assesses the massive damage, the news

crew asks themselves the age old photojournalist question, did we get the shot? >> my big worry was, was it actually rolling? and, you know, i waited a little while before i hit stop. and then i thought, please let this be on camera. please let this be on camera. i went back and rewound the tape and hit play and there it was. i felt a big sense of relief. got it! >> i knew he had it when he didn't talk to me. he just stood there and grinned. >> it takes road crews five months to reopen the highway. the total cost of the cleanup, $2.1 million. >> we worked in the snow to get the site stabilized so we could open the road again. these guys started doing the initial scaling so it was safe to move in equipment below the slope. and then a lot of work was done with a crane. we actually went in and used

rock bolts, 15 to 40 feet into the rock face, and added bolts to the side to try to stabilize everything. >> while the community is happy that the road is open again, they are also proud. because of the quick thinking and expertise of a road supervisor and a geologist, no one is injured or killed by the rock slide. >> i get some cold sweats from time to time thinking of all the things that could have gone wrong that day. if i had stopped for coffee. taken extra time for lunch before coming out to the site. the timing of everything was such that once i got there, we had time to see what was going on, get everybody out of the way before the slide actually occurred. >> had she not been there those rocks would have come down and not just bill and myself, but everybody that was working that scene, all the tdot crews. it would have been a much different story had we have been standing in that same spot.

coming up, winds cause this bridge to swing wildly, forcing commuters to run for their lives. >> we're watching steel and concrete half a mile long twisting 20 times a minute. >> when "caught on camera: watch out" continues. your home and auto insurance together. i'll just press this, and you'll save on both. ding! ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, llllet's get ready to bundlllllle... [ holding final syllable ] oh, yeah, sorry! let's get ready to bundle and save. now, that's progressive. oh, i think i broke my spleen! home insurance provided and serviced by third party insurers. ido more with less with buless energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy.

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it may look like special effects from an old hollywood movie, but this is real. a massive steel and concrete bridge sways and buckles, leaving commuters desperate to escape before it collapses. >> it was breathtaking. it was frightening. >> november 7th, 1940, tacoma, washington. it's a blustery day in puget

sound, located in the northwest section of the evergreen state. winds are gusting a little more than 40 miles per hour, causing the tacoma narrow's bridge to really sway. surprising as it looks, the movement doesn't stop cars and pedestrians from crossing it. ever since the bridge's opening four months earlier, residents affectionately call her galloping gertie. because of the way she dances and snakes in the wind. bridges are designed to move a little, but gertie's movements seem a bit extreme. for some residents, crossing her is lake an adventure. >> it was a thrill. it was like a carnival ride. almost a roller coaster. >> historian and author richard hobbs writes about the tacoma narrows bridge in his book, "catastrophe to triumph." >> people would come out on a windy day when there was extra bounce in the bridge and walk across. the motion could be fairly dramatic.

>> but some find that wave-like motion harrowing. >> as you drove across the bridge, you could look ahead and the car in front of you maybe 100 yards would absolutely disappear as it went down into one of these troughs. it was unnerving to a lot of drivers. many who crossed the bridge swore it would be the last time. >> and on that windy autumn day in 1940, it is the last time anyone crosses that bridge. >> about 10:00 the bridge began to move in ways it had not moved before. the undulations became higher and the ripples across the bridge were verging on dangerous. >> at about 10:15 a.m., one of the bands holding the suspension cable breaks, causing the bridge to move not only up and down, but back and forth. >> once that started, the bridge

increasingly began to twist. there was a car that had been trapped out on the bridge. a car driven by leonard postworth, a tacoma tribune editor. he was headed over to his summer cottage in the gig harbor area. in the back seat was his daughter's dog tubby. as the bridge began to twist, it was impossible to drive. >> he tries to get out of the car, but he can't open the door, so he crawls out of the window and tries unsuccessfully to walk across the bridge. >> he didn't get very far before he realized that the situation was so dangerous, he might not get back, and he better go back for tubby. >> but the bridge twists and writhes so violently, he can't safely go back for the dog. >> he was continually being thrown to the pavement and staggering off to one side and the other, virtually crawling part of the way to the safety of the east tower. >> another person trying to

escape from the bridge that day is professor bert farquharson. >> professor bert farquharson was a professor of engineering at the university of washington. and he was an authority on bridge structures. so when eldridge and lacey murrow became concerned about how much this bridge might move, they hired bert to conduct some studies. >> as part of his study, dr. farquharson sets up film cameras a few weeks after the bridge opens to records its movement. several weeks later the same cameras capture the drama of the bridge's final movements as they unfold. >> the phenomenal thing is we're watching steel and concrete half a mile long twisting 20 times a minute, as the twisting increased, light poles began to not only dance back and forth, but to snap off the suspender

cables that went from the bridge deck to the main suspension cable itself. they began to snap. >> and then the unimaginable happens. the massive steel structure bends, whips, and con torts so violently, that it collapses into the rushing water below. both make it off the bridge alive, but not tubby. he's still in the backseat when the structure gives way. the bridge failure makes news all across the world. >> the tacoma narrows bridge dedicated in 1940 was the pride of the northwest. four months after it was opened those winds sent the bridge into a rhythmic dance of death. it literally shook itself to pieces. >> very early in the process, in fact before construction began, the lead engineer was very

concerned about the bridge, so he began to help initiate studies by the professor at the university of washington that began to closely examine the bridge's movements. >> remedies are attempted before and after the bridge opens. >> they added cable tie-downs at each end of the bridge on the approach spans. they did a good job of holding the approach spans in place. but the rest of the bridge across the center span still moved a lot. >> professor farquharson also issues an in-depth bridge study and presents two more options to stabilize the bridge just five days before gertie collapses. but they never get the chance to implement those plans. tim moore, senior structural engineer for washington's

department of transportation, says the cause of the collapse was torsional flutter, or aerodynamic instability. >> that was the device that took the bridge down. this was a condition that no structure can maintain for a significant period of time. >> gertie is replaced by a stronger bridge in 1950, ten years after the collapse. but a part of it still survives. >> this is the side span, the approach span. this is the original galloping gertie's 1940 bridge. you can see the two eight-foot-deep gerders. >> many lessons are learned from gertie's demise, including how critical aerodynamics are in building suspension bridges. >> there really wasn't a major suspension bridge built until its replacement in 1950. and many of the things that

exist on the 1950s bridge are a tribute to better aerodynamic stability. >> in 2007 a twin bridge is completed. the architectural look of both structures resembles the original gertie, a tribute to her grace and elegance. >> so that new bridge as well as others have been constructed since 1940, are part of galloping gertie's legacy. coming up, an iceberg implodes in front of a group of tourists, sending them scrambling for safety. >> we're all shouting and screaming. >> when "caught on camera: watch out" continues. i think she tried to kill us. [ sighs ]

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>> a giant iceberg implodes in front of his eyes, and luckily for us, in front of the lens of his small digital camera. >> the adrenaline rush was enormous. >> february 10th, 2012, wilhelmina bay, antarctica. while on the trip to argentina, lex and his girlfriend pietra set out to explore the remote continent. antarctica is 720 miles from the argentinian coast. and in their words, so close. >> you should try to go there. normally it would be way too expensive. >> an argentinean travel group sponsors tours several times a year, particularly during the six arctic summer months from october through march. >> twice a day do expeditions. so you go in the small raft. antarctica is a different world.

if you haven't been there, you can't imagine what it's like. it's so beautiful, the scenery. you have all these animals you don't have in the rest of the world. you have two types of moss that grows there, and that's it. yeah, it's amazing. >> although the antarctica vistas are spectacular, they're set against the backdrop of frigid weather. average temperatures on the continent hover around minus 70 degrees fahrenheit. but at the time of lex's trip it's summer, and the temperature is a bit warmer. >> it was around zero. it was really cold. the wind is really cold. and the ice is really cold. you've got a lot of layers on, jackets, scarves, hats. >> despite the bitter cold, lex and company soak in every breathtaking moment of this remarkable landscape. >> we were down on the raft and then we just flowed past these

beautiful icebergs and islands. >> the raft circles close enough to get a true appreciation of how enormous and imposing they really are. one in particular catches lex's eye. >> this iceberg, it was really beautiful. i think it's the most beautiful iceberg i saw there. everything is sort of black and white and then this sharp blue iceberg just floating in the water. it's really like sculptures. this one sort of looked like a skull in the beginning. then pieces were falling off. >> the group returns to the ship, but is so intrigued by this particular iceberg, that they go back on a second expedition that same day to get a better look at it, not knowing the extraordinary moment that is about to unfold. >> oh, cool! i just switched on my camera.

we went again because when you're in antarctica, you want to do as much as you can. you're never going to be there again. >> when they get close, lex sees the big floating block of ice has changed. it's hollowed out because gigantic pieces of it continue to fall off more rapidly and are crashing into the water. >> oh, cool! >> pieces were falling off. it was a lot of noise. and so we were circling it for, i think, six minutes, something like that. and then at one point when we were thinking, okay, nothing is going to happen. >> and just when lex thinks the dramatic show is over, the iceberg gives an unexpected finale.

>> it just fell apart. a perfect implosion. and these big chunks of ice just were thrown towards us. like the iceberg spit them out. >> the giant iceberg collapses plunging into the deep, frigid water. it's a frightening scenario because the impact from the implosion could easily overturn the little raft. despite the danger, lex isn't feeling fear. >> the adrenaline rush was enormous. we were all shouting and screaming. >> quickly the tour guides maneuver the raft away from the falling chunks of ice and any potential large waves. >> you can still see some chunks hitting the boat.

>> after the ice stops raining down on the boat, sheer excitement takes over. >> this is a very old iceberg, if you can imagine such a thing. >> geologist and college professor robert titus analyzes lex's footage and says the iceberg had all the telltale signs of an impending breakdown. >> now what's happening here is this iceberg drifted into warm water. the warmth of the surrounding water caused the ice to expand and to contract and to fracture and to crack. and by the time these people got there, the whole thing simply collapsed. >> lex uploads his incredible shot to youtube and within one month, he gets 200,000 views. sometimes it takes traveling thousands of miles away from

home to be in the right place at the right time. >> i was really lucky, and just happy to have the camera, and be happy to show it to the rest of the world. coming up, residents of a small italian town run for their lives to escape a massive landslide. when "caught on camera: watch out" continues. you've reached the age where you've learned a thing or two. this is the age of knowing what you're made of. so why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury,

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>> i'm milissa rehberger. more than 100 aftershocks reported in california following yesterday's earthquake. the quake hit a short while ago. no deaths, but they're looking

to see if any infrastructure has been damaged. debris taken out of the indian ocean. so far authorities do not believe any of it actually came from the missing plane. the plane disappeared more than two weeks ago with 239 people onboard. back to "caught on camera." a massive river of mud, trees and dirt flows down a mountainside, threatening a small town, forcing people to run for their lives. february 15th, 2010, italy. the ancient town has had its share of landslides, but after nine days of relentless rain, residents are bracing for what looks like an unprecedented disaster.

husband and wife journalists are called to cover the unfolding story by the mayor of the town. >> translator: the mayor that i was acquainted with urged me to go and see it. however, it was a period of strong torrential rains that continued for days and days and there were landslides just about everywhere. so we decided to do different ones and wait. >> by the time they arrived most of the small town of 200 is evacuated, but people remain near the danger zone, not expecting the hillside to come down. astonished at the scene unfolding in front of her, the woman grabs her camera from the back of her car and starts shooting. >> translator: in the distance i framed a high voltage pole that very slowly began to descend, descend, descend until it finally toppled over. that's when we realized that

this was something much more serious than we could imagine. >> what she sees through her camera's view finder is something out of a biblical text. the earth buckles, waves and moves like an ocean. >> translator: little by little we saw the hill start to crumble, and then at a certain point, suddenly the mountain came tumbling down. i don't know if i realized it or i hadn't realized it, i planted myself there with a television camera on my shoulder and recorded. >> the civilian protection men try to block them from shooting, but they just keep on working. >> translator: at a certain point we heard a deafening noise far away. and then this imposing immense landslide.

i have to tell the truth, i didn't check my words. luckily i didn't say anything strange, and we went live recording video and audio. and reporting what is immediate sensation. that was precisely the effect. something unimaginable, unforeseeable was happening before our eyes. and it was huge. [ speaking foreign language ] >> geologist and college professor robert titus explains this geological phenomenon. >> i think this was an extraordinary landslide. first for the power it displayed. you saw waves, choppy waves of soil moving up and down, sliding

by at a remarkable rate of speed. any person, any animal in the way would have been killed. any house, any home, any building would have surely been destroyed. >> titus says the heavy and prolonged rainfall over several days prior to the landslide saturated the ground, turning the limestone rock and soil into an oozing muck. >> all this is astonishing. it's almost like watching water flow by. >> wave after wave of soil, rock and trees break off and crumble down the mountain. the landslide keeps going and going and going. this scene lasts for 30 minutes, and petritsia and mauricio record it all. >> translator: the effect was truly hypnotic, because of what was happening. to tell you the truth, we accepted the images what was

happening when we saw it later. >> despite some people choosing not to evacuate, no one is injured or killed and perhaps more astonishing, no homes are lost. >> translator: we were in an area totally outside of the town. the last house that's visible is precisely the last house in town. there's nothing beyond that point. there's only a road that links it with another town that now doesn't exist anymore either. >> after they visit the landslide area two years later they are concerned that no repairs have been done. the road is still not fixed and the mountainside is not secured. mauricio is especially affected since he was born here and still has family there. >> translator: sometimes i go back there. it also happens that i go back to that area. i must tell the truth, it upsets me, because two years later, i thought something would have been done.

but nothing has been done, and i'm very sorry about that. >> geologists say the landslides of this magnitude are somewhat unpredictable. luckily for the people, everyone survived this one. [ shouting ] coming up, fear strikes tinseltown when an enormous sinkhole opens up in the middle of hollywood boulevard. >> my first concern was anybody killed or injured in the hole. >> when "caught on camera: watch out" continues. check it out. i can't believe your mom has a mom cave! today i have new campbell's chunky spicy chicken quesadilla soup. she gives me chunky before every game. i'm very souperstitious.

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uh, yeah, i guess. [ laughs ] this is ridiculous. christopher glenn! [ doorbell rings ] what is that? swiffer sweep & trap. i think i can use this. it picks up everything. i like this. that's a lot of dirt. it's that easy! good job chris! i think a woman will probably come your way. [ both laugh ] an underground construction accident creates a giant sinkhole that swallows up a busy

street, catching a city by surprise. >> i would have fell right in. >> my staff and i were out on the street going, oh, this looks like it could be really bad. >> june 22nd, 1995, hollywood, california. tinseltown brings to mind the image of big homes, big stars, and the iconic hilltop sign. but this unfolding disaster is not happening in the hollywood hills or on an expensive soundstage. >> that part of hollywood is not the glamour part of hollywood. we call it east hollywood here in los angeles. it's more residential. it's more community. >> jackie goldberg is a former los angeles city councilwoman. in 1995 she represents a district where the city is building a subway. it's one of the largest public works projects of its time, and some of goldberg's constituents are complaining about it. >> we don't need a metro rail as

they are proposing it. let's get back to the buses where the people can be moved around properly. >> not only are residents complaining, but so are the business owners. for them, it's less about the subway itself than the construction. they're losing money. >> it takes so long to build these things underground and you just don't have much choice but to tear streets up and close streets. businesses were putting big signs on their property saying, open for business during construction, because it looked like you couldn't get there. and people were angry. >> so when a water main breaks at the construction site on hollywood boulevard, goldberg holds a press conference to bring attention to the problem. as goldberg stands in front of news cameras, the water main problem suddenly gets much worse. >> we were actually not far from the actual location that morning. some people were very concerned that a lot of water was being pumped out from under the soil in hollywood. and so we had engineers and we

had technical people who were explaining that this was all going to be fine. and then, crack. >> the crack she hears is the sound of the roadway caving into the subway tunnel under construction. mud, rocks, dirt and water cascade down into a big hole, exposing sensitive utility pipes. the news crews on site capture the dramatic event as it unfolds. >> my first concern was is anybody hurt or killed in the hole. fortunately it turned out that though they were working in there, when they heard the crack, they all moved away from the street, to be sure that nothing was going to happen. >> the crater keeps expanding until it measures 70 feet wide and 70 feet deep. as the hole grows in size, so does goldberg's anxiety. her biggest fear is the exposed gas lines.

>> we got all the gas company people out there to shut off the gas lines around the area. you break a water line you get water. but gas explodes. so we got the gas turned off pretty darn quickly. and that's why there were no explosions in the surrounding area. >> the neighboring streets are shut down to traffic. about 70 patients are evacuated from a nearby hospital. although people in the area are inconvenienced, no one is injured or killed. city and state investigations conclude that the sinkhole was caused by the water main break, but there's still debate about whether it was caused by corrosion of the aging main or triggered by subway construction. >> it was a broken main. not just the pipe but the main. that's one of these things that carry lots of volume, and that water evidently had been coming in for some time before it was

detected. >> crews repair the water main, fill the hole with concrete and repair the road. hollywood boulevard becomes a bustling thoroughfare once again. in 1999, four years later, the red line stop at hollywood and western is finally completed. passengers ride the trains and all is well in the city of angels. coming up, an entire industrial building collapses from heavy snow, as employees run for their lives. >> it sounded like a freight train coming. >> when "caught on camera: watch out" continues. [ male announcer ] there is no substitute for experience. for what reality teaches you firsthand. in the face of danger, and under the most demanding circumstances. experience builds character. experience builds confidence.

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a huge industrial building collapses under the weight of heavy snow. >> wow. i can't believe this has occurred. >> but the terrifying question is -- >> oh my gosh, is everybody okay? did everyone get out? february 3rd, 2011, easton,

massachusetts. the northeast experiences one of the worst winters in years. snowfall averages in region break records. peter howe is a reporter for new england cable news in newton, massachusetts. >> it was a horrible winter. i can't remember what the first snow was, but it was probably november. it started snowing. it kept snowing every five days. it never got warm enough for it to melt. the snow piled up and piled up and piled up. >> that morning a snowy, icy rain is falling. howe and cameraman brian butler are sent to cover potential roof collapses all over the county. >> we knew the day before there may be some roof problems because of all the snow on roofs and the added weight of the water and the assignment desk called us. they said there's a building in easton, massachusetts. can you head over that way? we said sure. >> they arrive at the triton building a few minutes before 11:00 a.m., and are astonished to see the entire building is

buckling. >> we had been hearing extraordinary sounds. just kind of groaning, creeking, the twisting of metal and bricks popping out as the wall falls in. >> hao wonders is there anyone still in the building. the building is the east coast hub of tritan technologies. a 24-hour call center with about 100 employees. tritan's chief legal counsel, kathleen dias, works at the facility. she hadn't yet arrived but employees called her alarmed by the loud noises the brick building is making. >> somebody described it like a freight train coming, and then the fire alarms went off. it was really people seeing ceiling tiles moving and going that's not normal. something really serious is going on here. >> a supervisor ordered everyone out of their seats and hurries them to an exit. >> luckily we have a sales

manager on the floor who heard the noiseses and literally stood up and started shouting at people to get out of the building and grabbed people and got their attention and pushed people out the door. >> it's only a few minutes after the last employee leaves that the building starts to fall. >> the wall of the building was bowed and it was slowly falling backwards away from us. >> you could hear glass begin to crack as the strain of the building is going on itself. >> probably a 30-foot wall, 30 feet high just slowly leaning back in a bowed position. and all of a sudden everything accelerates. and it goes from creak, creek, bang to just the whole thing just falls. it's easily the most extraordinary thing i've been bear to witness.

>> tritan loses an office building but no lives. the company credits quick thinking staff with getting everyone out in time. jay nally is tritan's president and ceo. >> we had to do extraordinary things to get everybody out of the building safely. >> some of the employees had the presence of mind to react to it. >> a 100-year-old building collapses in the middle of a busy city. sending firefighters scrambling for safety. >> there's a gut feeling. i knew something would happen. >> may 5th, 1997. new york city. more than 200 firefighters are

called to the scene of an unrelenting blaze in the heart of manhattan's garment district. it starts in the cramped, narrow basement of a shoe store which is packed to capacity with highly flammable material. the century old building has no sprinkler system. >> there were heavy boxes. mostly shoes we think stored up to the ceiling. >> retired assistant chief harry norum was one of the commanders overseeing operations that day. >> they went to the staircase inside. there were no exterior openings. so now the officer takes four or five men into the cellar. the boxes were falling down into the area of escape. so first the chief says okay, let's get out of the cellar. >> they are forced to fight the fire from the outside but that has its risks.

norum is concerned the old building will not be able to withstand the heat of the fire, and the weight of the water being pumped in to fight it. >> we were providing 500 gallons per minute at these locations. which leads to the dead load in the building. >> the city's buildings department tells norm that the structure is stable because there aren't any cracks or bulges in the walls but he doesn't take any chances and establishes a wide perimeter or collapse zone around it. >> we move those trucks and the tower ladders, are pieces of equipment, and the hose lines away from the building to the opposite side of the street. >> firefighters are also repositioned across the street and continue their efforts to control the blaze. norum's instincts are right. after nine hours of fire and thousands of gallons of water pumped in, the walls suddenly give way, raining bricks and debris on the street below.

>> the initial sound to me was like a crack. then a rumble. and then, of course, everything became physical. you could see the interior collapsed. pulled the wall down in a curtain like fashion. >> residents are grateful there are no fatalities or serious injuries. but the loss of homes and businesses is a blow. >> your life is gone. everything that you had. everything is just gone. >> for chief norum the collapse emphasizes an important caution, there are often hidden hazards behind the fire and smoke. >> it's very, very important that people in the area, especially firefighters and agency people know that the dangers don't subside after fire is brought under control

ordinary people rising up. toppling tyrants. shutting down cities. >> who's in charge of seattle today? >> we are. >> he simply walked up and just started spraying across the line. >> from tahrir square to occupy wall street, video seen around the world. >> medic! >> that stoked the fires of freedom and sparked political change. >> ever since then the camera has been a feature of every protest. ♪