Forklift failure of truly epic proportions

Appears to be cases of bottled ?? I worked in a brewery, and some of the storage was shelving such as this. The incoming material shelving was deeper - and 3 pallets high. You could put 4 or 5 pallets in each bay, it was a incline roller bay, so gravity feed pallets to the front as ones were removed. Worked OK, until it didn't. There was no way to clear a jammed or spilled pallet but climb up there. The finished goods (packaged beer) warehouse utilized "robot" forklifts. The robots went rogue on occasion, with predictable results, lol. Never had anything like that though. I think most I ever saw was around 16 pallets of beer pushed over by a robot.
 
The first bumped rack leg likely was not anchored properly or not at all to the floor. This makes it easy to knock it out of position and we see what usually happens.
 
Look at the loong chain reaction- yowza- injuries galore I'm sure, if not death
 
Hard to tell if he bumps the leg, or the cross beam. Either way, looks like an accident was bound to happen. Looks like it is just the uprights, and the cross beams. nothing connecting the cross beams front to back. Pallets are just held by the front, and rear edges. The cross beams are likely near their max weight, and the uprights do not look like they have extra strength to spare either.

If all the uprights were bolted down, they are likely just 1/2" anchor bolts. I doubt this would be different if they were bolted or not. If the upright was hit by the wheel, it would either bend inward if not bolted, or just buckle if bolted, same end result either way. If it was the cross beam that got bumped, it just pulled both uprights inward, and then they buckled, with the weight of the falling pallets adding to the cross beams buckling.

It may have been within the weight the racks were designed for, but there was no safety factor in the design.

I think the rows should have been interconnected, so they could still stand if one side of an upright got taken out.

Surprised they were allowed to get away without big bumpers at the corners of all the racking.

When I lived in Pa, I watched a big warehouse get built. they assembled the racks first, 60 feet tall, and covered several acres. Then the roof got built with the racks for support, and the walls attached to the outside. One big mass of steel racking, with walls and a roof.
 
When I lived in Pa, I watched a big warehouse get built. they assembled the racks first, 60 feet tall, and covered several acres. Then the roof got built with the racks for support, and the walls attached to the outside. One big mass of steel racking, with walls and a roof.

Was that the warehouse north of York on 83? I drove by there several times during construction and was amazed at the size of the place. I think it's a food distribution company.
 
Was that the warehouse north of York on 83? I drove by there several times during construction and was amazed at the size of the place. I think it's a food distribution company.
Correct. It is a food and food type stuff warehouse. I heard that they were doing all the distribution for the Lever Bros soap products made at their balt plant. I hauled a bunch of P&G paper stuff there, when the first half opened up.

I take it they do not own the products, but they just warehouse it, and attempt to configure single loads of mixed product, going to a single store.
 
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