Engineering Disasters (1 of 28)

Manhattan's Citicorp Center.
A hurricane threatened to bring it down on some of the most crowded streets in New York City.
Only one engineer knew how to stop it.
The Titanic.
Hailed as unsinkable.
She took fifteen hundred to a watery grave.
Now scientists shed new light on an old mystery.
The MGM Grand Hotel and the search for why so many died twenty stories above the flames.
Engineering Disasters.
Las Vegas.
Glitter Gulch.

The city thrives on tourism, luring millions of visitors with the promise of glamour and gambling.
In 1980, one of the biggest casinos in Vegas was in the MGM Grand Hotel.
The Gambling Hall was longer than a football field with forty blackjack tables and one thousand slot machines.
But on the morning of November 21st, the casino's luck ran out.
In Las Vegas this morning, a huge fire is raging out of control at the MGM Grand Hotel.
Many of the guests are still in their rooms and are calling and waving for help.
I looked up and I was just amazed.
This huge building, which at that time was the largest hotel in Las Vegas, just smoke pouring out of windows and doors and out of the roof area.
The blaze was one of the worst hotel fires in US history.
Eighty-five guests and employees died and another six hundred were inured.
Ironically, the hotel had passed a fire inspection just six months earlier.