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re: 14 Years ago today, the darkest day in Aggie history
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:12 am to Jobu93
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:12 am to Jobu93
Here is the 1994 collapse. We had heavy rain for days and the ground was so soft that the stack started leaning to one side. So we decided to pull it down and rebuild it with about a week left until burn. If I remember correctly it didn't get done until a couple hours before it was supposed to burn.
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Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:18 am to aggressor
A very close friend's son was at A&MS. I remember upon hearing about the collapse calling my friends to check on him. Thankfully he was fine. It was devastating.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:37 am to LSUCouyon
Terrible, you hate to see young people die in any fashion but that was particularly heartbreaking. My thoughts and prayers go out to the A&M family today.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 7:46 am to CSAggie08
Posted on 11/19/13 at 8:16 am to aggressor
quote:
Climbing up on stack was scary as hell but absolutely incredible. Hard to explain the feeling of being up there, especially in the middle of the night during Push. Absolutely nothing else like it.
This is one of those experiences I would let someone with a GoPro share with me. I can't even imagine the weight of even one of those timbers not to mention a tower of them.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 8:21 am to flyAU
eh, after first stack logs, everything above wasnt' that heavy.
I do remember cussing a group of CTs because they didn't have enoough people to send the log to me, and as the Swing on first stack, it was my job to jump out, catch the log, and ride it in preventing any rebound. They said I was full of shite as I was only a non reg and their collective bravado swayed the judgement of an otherwise sage Johan. Well, I was right and there wasn't enough muscle to throw it into stack, and I was left suspended about 4 feet from stack, straddling this big arse log. I was cussing them and Johan, the JRP at the time who didn't listen to me and let them try. It was the longest minute of my life as they worked to get the log and me situated into stack.
I'd do it tomorrow if it were around.
I do remember cussing a group of CTs because they didn't have enoough people to send the log to me, and as the Swing on first stack, it was my job to jump out, catch the log, and ride it in preventing any rebound. They said I was full of shite as I was only a non reg and their collective bravado swayed the judgement of an otherwise sage Johan. Well, I was right and there wasn't enough muscle to throw it into stack, and I was left suspended about 4 feet from stack, straddling this big arse log. I was cussing them and Johan, the JRP at the time who didn't listen to me and let them try. It was the longest minute of my life as they worked to get the log and me situated into stack.
I'd do it tomorrow if it were around.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 9:08 am to KSGamecock
quote:
Sad story.
Tangentially related: 7,000 trees a year cut specifically for a bonfire is a frick ton. I can't imagine the logistics behind that.
This is TLDR so sorry in advance.
This is actually the part that is hardest to explain. Every log was cut by an axe and chainsaws were only used to trim. It took so much collective effort.
It would start just a couple of weeks into the Semester for "First Cut". The dorms would all get a group of Freshman that they would shave different letters into their heads to spell something out like "Build The Hell Out of Bonfire" with each Freshman having 1 letter. You would pile into cars and drive out to cut site where the energy was palpable.
Every Dorm and Corps outfit had a job. For instance Walton Hall was famous for "Walton Loads", meaning they didn't cut the trees but they always loaded the logs to ship them. In the Corps every class had different jobs as well at cut. Freshman only got to haul logs. Sophomores used machetes to clear the brush. Juniors and Seniors did all the actual chopping of the trees. Each Dorm and Outfit would have especially large logs that would be placed on at the end for the outside of Stack.
On campus you could see the pile of logs slowly build and it just got you excited. Then came the big day where they would raise Centerpole which was a specially constructed log that everything was built around (technically during the collapse when Centerpole snapped is when it crashed). Different dorms and outfits had different responsibilities for every facet of the build. Then the actual stacking began. Every log was wired in with huge groups of people carrying the logs over and using cranes where necessary to lift them on to stack.
It was just an amazing site. Every time you walked or drove by you could see the Stack build with people working. There was an entire organizational structure around Bonfire, all student run. The Red Pots (Pot being the helmet you wore) were in ultimate charge and I don't know how any of them passed a class because they lived Bonfire in the Fall. Then you had Brown Pots and Yellow Pots. It was a massive undertaking and amazing to see how it came together every year.
The burn was the icing on the cake and just a celebration of all the work you had done. Sure, it was to symbolize the "Burning Desire to Beat the Hell outta tu!" but really it was about coming together as an entire school. It was so cool to be out at Stack and be hauling logs with some guy you had never met before and came from a completely different background. None of that mattered, you were just both Aggies working toward a common goal and purpose. Seeing that Bonfire go up after months of work and surrounded by tens of thousands of other Aggies was just an incredible feeling. It was a big reason why Aggies are so fanatical about loyalty to their school and take so much personal pride in it, it was a very special experience.
That's why it can't come back. You could have a fire or you could do a project but it would never be remotely the same. If you do ever visit the campus though and get a chance to see the Memorial maybe that can give you an idea of what it meant. It's a humbling experience to stand on that ground where Centerpole stood and imagine all of those giant logs and the thousands of Aggies that put so much blood, sweat, and tears into that ground over the years.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 9:39 am to aggressor
quote:
aggressor
Very interesting. Had there been very many smaller accidents throughout the years? Any loose logs, chainsaw of other things that can happen with chopping down trees with an axe? I am impressed if there was a long track record of safety which would lead to a since of security since it is done every year. This is one of those scenarios where you wish there had been a smaller accident before this so that they could have implemented whatever changes would have kept it safe and a tradition that could live on.
Rounding up a bunch of 18yr old college freshman and handing them axes would normally sound like a bad idea. Although i am sure A&M has more boy scouts etc than most other schools.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 10:11 am to Jobu93
quote:
Jobu93
:csb:
Posted on 11/19/13 at 10:11 am to flyAU
Every year there would be some incidents. In fact if you go to the Memorial they have the names of several others that died over the years in Bonfire related incidents (the most common being car wrecks to or from Cut). Lots of minor injuries of course and occasionally a major one. With thousands of people working hundreds of thousands of hours it certainly happened.
They did train people and if you were a first year Bonfire worker you wore a "virgin stripe" which was a white stripe on your helmet. In the end though lots of things contributed to the collapse, really it was a combination of many things coming together for the disaster. Probably the most unfortunate to me was the engineers and school actually got less involved out of fear of liability the last few years. I know when I read through some of the Commission report of the collapse I was amazed at how some things had lapsed in terms of control.
There was no ill intent of course, just a lack of foresight. Honestly I always thought they had more professional supervision than there actually was (there was more when I was in school). Plenty of blame to go around and everyone lost in the end. As much as I loved it I don't know if I could support it being back on campus again, we have just had to move on to other things and you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
I will say this though, had Bonfire still existed there is a much, much stronger possibility that A&M would not have made the move to the SEC. I think it would have been fine personally to have had it without the Texas game but that may have been enough to turn the momentum. A LOT of people cared more about Bonfire than they did football and that isn't because Aggies aren't fanatical about football.
They did train people and if you were a first year Bonfire worker you wore a "virgin stripe" which was a white stripe on your helmet. In the end though lots of things contributed to the collapse, really it was a combination of many things coming together for the disaster. Probably the most unfortunate to me was the engineers and school actually got less involved out of fear of liability the last few years. I know when I read through some of the Commission report of the collapse I was amazed at how some things had lapsed in terms of control.
There was no ill intent of course, just a lack of foresight. Honestly I always thought they had more professional supervision than there actually was (there was more when I was in school). Plenty of blame to go around and everyone lost in the end. As much as I loved it I don't know if I could support it being back on campus again, we have just had to move on to other things and you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
I will say this though, had Bonfire still existed there is a much, much stronger possibility that A&M would not have made the move to the SEC. I think it would have been fine personally to have had it without the Texas game but that may have been enough to turn the momentum. A LOT of people cared more about Bonfire than they did football and that isn't because Aggies aren't fanatical about football.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 10:37 am to aggressor
Sad day
I never realized till today that the logs were stacked vertically and not horizontally like the Christmas Bonfires on the Levee
I never realized till today that the logs were stacked vertically and not horizontally like the Christmas Bonfires on the Levee
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:38 pm to aggressor
Thoughts and prayers Aggies
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:45 pm to Jobu93
quote:
They said I was full of shite as I was only a non reg
You were full of shite as you were only a non reg.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:53 pm to aggressor
quote:
They did train people and if you were a first year Bonfire worker you wore a "virgin stripe" which was a white stripe on your helmet. In the end though lots of things contributed to the collapse, really it was a combination of many things coming together for the disaster. Probably the most unfortunate to me was the engineers and school actually got less involved out of fear of liability the last few years. I know when I read through some of the Commission report of the collapse I was amazed at how some things had lapsed in terms of control.
Honestly, at the time of the accident, I remember just being appalled by the type of design y'all used to make the stack. I am no engineer, but in all honesty, I was surprised that sort of thing hadn't happened more often. I participated in the building on my alma mater's bonfire during school, and while we can't brag about lugging whole trees out of the forest to build it, it was still plenty impressive once lit. The whole thing just seems like a senseless tragedy in order to say "we keep doing it like they did it 90 years ago. rah rah. " There is a reason crap evolves. Life wasn't as safe 90 years ago in many respects. It just sucks all the way around, and that really is a heartbreaking image posted earlier in the thread.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 6:58 pm to SoGaFan
If they had built it like they did 90 years ago it probally wouldn't have happened. They made the first to tiers the same size mistakenly believing that to be stronger.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 8:12 pm to NoAC lives
quote:
The 911 log starts at 2:42 and for reasons unknown they went with that as the official time.
This is why that is the official time. There were 12 unattended deaths. So the 911 log is the opening moment of the investigation.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 8:27 pm to aggressor
Agressor, why were't steel cable used to strengthen the bind of the lower stack?
From the report:
From the report:
quote:
Structurally, the collapse was driven by a containment failure in the first stack of logs. Two primary factors caused this failure: the first was excessive internal stresses driven primarily by aggressive wedging of second stack logs into the first stack. The second was inadequate containment strength. The wiring used to tie the logs together provided insufficient binding strength. Also, steel cables, which in recent years had been wrapped around the first stack, were not used in 1999, further reducing containment strength.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 8:42 pm to aggressor
quote:
This is TLDR...
No it was not. Thanks for posting. Though this was an incredible tragedy, I have gained tremendous respect as each of you have posted about this tradition and what it meant to you. Much props to Aggieland.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 8:57 pm to DWag215
quote:
Agressor, why were't steel cable used to strengthen the bind of the lower stack?
From the report:
quote:
Structurally, the collapse was driven by a containment failure in the first stack of logs. Two primary factors caused this failure: the first was excessive internal stresses driven primarily by aggressive wedging of second stack logs into the first stack. The second was inadequate containment strength. The wiring used to tie the logs together provided insufficient binding strength. Also, steel cables, which in recent years had been wrapped around the first stack, were not used in 1999, further reducing containment strength.
I have no idea. It did seem from what I read in the report (didn't read everything) that the safety precautions and some of the other things we had done when I was in school (though I wasn't a Red/Brown Pot so I don't REALLY know) were better. I know they had those logs in TIGHT back then.
On a related note, just a little while ago I saw someone posted the Bonfire from my Sr Year (1992).
LINK
If you look at 15:30 you can see RC Slocum come out with the game ball and he passes it to some cadets, I was one of them. We ran the ball around Bonfire 3 times and then took it in relays the 93 miles to Austin. The crazy part is I had never seen the video and just realized that at 21:45 Bonfire fell. I don't know just how close we would have been but we were VERY close to being in the wrong place at the wrong time since we were inside the safety circle that was formed to surround it.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 9:04 pm to Wolfhound45
It really is unbelievable that we've gone 15 years without Bonfire -- at least as we knew it.
For all of the "traditions" we talk about (and get hazed around here about) it was easily the most significant, palpable, and visible thing we did as a community. Not just current students, but former students, family, friends, neighbors. In a way it really defined Aggie Spirit.
And now it's gone. As tragic as the unimaginable loss of young lives was, it is almost made worse by the fact that we abandoned Bonfire afterwards. They would have never wanted to be part of the discussion that led to the demise of something so significant to them and the Aggie community.
For all of the "traditions" we talk about (and get hazed around here about) it was easily the most significant, palpable, and visible thing we did as a community. Not just current students, but former students, family, friends, neighbors. In a way it really defined Aggie Spirit.
And now it's gone. As tragic as the unimaginable loss of young lives was, it is almost made worse by the fact that we abandoned Bonfire afterwards. They would have never wanted to be part of the discussion that led to the demise of something so significant to them and the Aggie community.
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