Original subtitles

My name is tory belleci,

and this is the "explosion show."

[ explosion ]

now, when I was on "mythbusters,"

I blew up all sorts of stuff.

[ explosion ]

that was crazy!

This is my buddy tommy passemante.

What up?

He loves exposes just as much as I do,

but he's more of a enthusiast.

On this show,

we're gonna meet people who blow stuff up for living.

Do you guys love your job or what?

-It's a blast. -[ laughs ]

we're gonna blow stuff up in the name of science.

It's like a balloon, so it goes in three dimensions.

Tory: And then we're gonna blow step up because why not?

Ah, it sneaks up on you!

It's just plain awesome.

That was insane!

So stick around.

You might enjoy this just as much as we do.

That seemed a little anticlimactic.

Yeah, I felt like there

should've been like an explosion...

[ explosion ]

♪

oh, god.

[ laughter ]

-oh! -[ laughs ]

♪ here come the boom ♪

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

have you ever asked yourself where's the best place to be

during an explosion?

I would imagine away from it.

Nowhere near it. That would be my guess.

But what if you couldn't actually get away from the blast

and you had to find the safest place to be?

We're here at new mexico tech.

Hello, good to see you.

Tory: And that's exactly what they study.

You see, one of the most dangerous parts of an explosion

isn't the fireball, it's called the blast wave.

It's a concussive energy

that pushes outwards from an explosion.

Van: This is 10,000 pounds of anfo.

This is like a wall coming at you.

When it hits you that pressure pulse

will cause a lot of damage to your body.

Tory: New mexico tech is one of the only schools in the world

that studies explosions to see how to protect people

and buildings from blast waves.

To get a look at how these waves work in the real world,

tommy and I are gonna complete a series of challenges

starting with something small.

Yeah, here we go.

A letter bomb.

Just when you thought working in an office

couldn't get any worse,

someone goes off and sends you an explosion real cool.

Okay, so what we've got is essentially a letter bomb,

for lack of a better term.

-That's a bomb? -That's a bomb.

Tory: Letter bombs are particularly dangerous

because they can be really difficult to recognize.

One of the most notorious bombers to use this method

was ted kaczynski, also known as the unabomber.

Between 1978 and 1995 kaczynski

sent a series of bombs through the mail

killing three people and injuring 27 others.

Although kaczynski included clues with his bombs,

such as frequently using

the same $1 eugene o'neill stamps,

the fact that he hand-built every component of his bombs

made them virtually untraceable.

He was so meticulous in hiding his identity

that it took a tip from his brother

to finally track him down.

And how will, like, how would you be able to set that off

in a letter bomb?

Probably don't want to go into that detail.

Forget I asked that question. Let's move on.

The other thing that we're going to be doing with this,

like most letter bombs,

people like to add shrapnel to them.

We're gonna put some paper clips on the explosive.

Tory: It's pretty terrifying.

This tiny bomb has enough force to turn a paperclip weighing

just half a gram into a deadly projectile.

-It's very creepy. -It just got real.

Tory: So tommy and I each have our own room.

Inside the room there are a couple of places

that are safer than others.

Tory: Our task is to find the safest spot

to place the dummy inside that room.

Mike, why do they look like us?

[ laughs ]

are you trying to tell us something?

So if you also notice we have some pressure gauges right here.

So we're gonna actually measure

how much pressure you see from this letter bomb

where you place your dummy.

And so what's the foil for, is that the safe?

The foil is called a bikini gauge.

Tory: In 1946, the united states began a series of nuclear tests

in the marshall islands at a place called bikini atoll.

Among the many tools used to measure

the magnitude of the blast was the bikini gauge,

a diaphragm of thin aluminum

or copper foil placed over a hole.

If the foil broke, researchers knew

the approximate amount of peak pressure placed on the gauge

based on the diameter of the hole

and the thickness of the foil.

What were you thinking when you said bikini gauge?

My brain went in the gutter.

Tory: The bikini gauges on these dummies are configured to burst

at two pounds of pressure per square inch.

Roughly the amount of pressure required to burst your eardrums.

So these things pop, we know our eardrums are gone.

Mike: Let's place your dummies.

Okay, so I'm thinking like, I'm gonna get right behind

the guy who was opening the letter bomb.

I hear something ticking, I think that, you know,

his body's probably gonna protect me from frags.

That's a good choice.

All right. Tommy, what do you want to do?

Yeah, so, like, I'd be under the desk

because I totally dropped my pencil,

so I'm looking for it.

Do you think maybe that desk

is gonna protect you from the blast?

Yeah, it's gonna deflect.

Everything hanging out. All right, I think we're good.

Let's go ahead and shoot it and see what happens.

Tory: Now it's time for jon rig up the detonator.

As the ordinance technician, jon is an expert

on all things blast-related,

so we're glad he's around to keep us safe.

Based on total guesswork,

we've both decided where to place our dummies.

I'm cowering behind my coworker in one room

and tommy's doing something under the desk in the other.

Time to see how it all plays out.

Okay, here we go. First shot.

-Ready? -Ready.

Three, two, one.

[ explosion ]

dude, that was the size of a letter?

Yes.

Tory: That was just one ounce of sheet explosive,

small enough to fit inside of an envelope.

All right, mike, we ready to go?

Jonathan: Let's do it again. Let's see how tommy's fares.

I got no faith.

Yeah, you're so dead.

Is everybody ready?

Yeah.

Okay. Here we go. In three, two, one.

[ explosion ]

it never gets old!

I feel like I'm a goner.

It's okay.

Let's go check it out.

-Oh, man. -Oh, my god.

Look at this.

It's like a perfect rectangle of where the bomb was.

Your head is pretty tore up.

-Not really. -Look at it.

You got all this shrapnel, look it blew its face off.

Yeah, but that's just like my ear and stuff.

Dude, I don't know. Should we check the...

-My bikini? -Yeah, check your --

-oh. -Oh, she gone.

All right, well.

So based on the bikini gauge being blown,

we know tommy's ear drums would have ruptured at the very least.

The blast basically shattered the table

and then all of that came down this way,

hit the side of your face and the back

and then if you look up here.

Holy...

-That is the paper clips. -Whoa!

Dude, look at all the paper clips embedded in the dry wall.

That is terrifying.

It is. Yep.

Tory: We need to download the results

from the neck pressure gauge

to get the official results,

but based on the face full of desk,

tommy isn't looking so hot.

Time to head over to the other room

and see if my choice to hide behind my coworker paid off.

Well.

-Oh, yeah. -Your gauge is blown as well.

Okay.

We'll know for sure when we download the data,

but it's not looking good. Sorry.

Tory: Blast wave pressure is measured in psi --

pounds per square inch.

Anything above two is enough to burst eardrums,

the most sensitive part of your body.

Six to 12 psi could start to damage

other sensitive organs like your lungs.

And pressure higher than 20 psi

means your chance of survival drops off quickly.

According to the pressure gauge around my dummy's neck,

I experienced 4.1 psi of pressure,

so I'm probably okay.

So wait, so what you're saying is my coworker is dead

and I probably survived?

There's a good chance.

All right, I'm getting a promotion after all.

By diving under the desk, tommy actually managed

to shield himself from some of the pressure.

His dummy only saw three psi pressure,

but there's one little problem.

All of the fragments from the desk

probably would have impaled you.

I didn't like that job anyway.

You guys both chose cover over distance.

Tory: This is important information we didn't have

when we were placing our dummies.

If we had chosen the corner opposite of that desk,

we might've survived? -You might have.

Tory: Distance is almost always preferable to cover

when you're trying to survive an explosion.

So even though I survived, I might've salvaged my eardrums

if I had chosen the opposite corner of the room.

Why did we want to get so close to the letter bomb?

-Are we just that curious? -I don't know.

You guys want to see what a whole lot can do?

Uh, that's why we came here.

Let's go see.

I'm gonna stick to emails. No more letters for me.

This is like cold war.

Oh! [ laughs ]

I was not expecting to feel that in here.

-Whoa! -Ah!

Mr president, there's no survivors.

Tory: We're here at new mexico tech

where they conduct industry-leading research

on the properties of blast waves.

Our experts mike and jon are about to show us

a one-of-a-kind testing facility --

the urban canyon.

This model of a city block

is designed to simulate a blast in an urban environment.

The structure is so menacing, this is like cold war [bleep].

Tory: The urban canyon tests the way the blast waves ricochet

off of the building's geometry.

The data gathered here is used to construct safer buildings

like the freedom tower in new york city.

Are those solid concrete?

These are hollow blocks,

and then the bars sticking out of the top

are actually a deformable steel rod that we take a jack

and we stretch the rod, tighten the nut,

and then let the pressure off and it holds the stack together

so that when we hit it with the blast, it does it.

Sorry you said tight nuts. Sorry, mike.

-[ laughs ] -all right. All right. You good?

Okay, yeah. Can we blow it up yet?

-Let's go and check it out. -All right.

Tory: Our next challenge is a big one.

Tommy: We just got to stretch the rod and tighten the nuts.

Tory: We got a fresh set of dummies,

so we're going to examine the geometry of the urban canyon

and attempt to place the dummies in a spot

that is sheltered from the blast waves.

Good luck.

Don't need it. Good luck.

So dumb.

♪

-oh, hey, what's up? -Hey, what's going on, buddy?

♪

I would imagine you would want to get low to the ground, right?

In order to demonstrate the way blast waves

can bounce off buildings and wrap around walls,

we're placing a few extra dummies in other spots.

Tory, look out! Ah!

You saved me! You're my hero.

[ laughs ] yes, sir.

♪

tory: Now that the dummies are in place

and tommy's done some light tagging...

I can't take him anywhere.

...It's time to load up our explosives.

This is anfo or ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.

This was first used as an explosive in the 1950s.

The canadians actually developed this

for blasting coal mines, initially.

Tory: Anfo quickly grew in popularity

in the mining industry.

It was much safer than dynamite

because it was difficult to set off accidentally by impact,

so workers could load it

without fear of an unexpected detonation.

And because anfo has a relatively low detonation

velocity compared to other explosives like tnt,

the pressure from its blast waves travel slower,

but it sustains that pressure for longer periods of time.

That makes it more effective for things like moving earth.

In other words, it's got a lot of push,

not a lot of punch.

Tory: 70 pounds of explosives is no joke,

so we're gonna observe from inside

the thick concrete walls of this bunker.

When the apocalypse happens, this is where you want to be.

Right, in we go and nobody comes out till we're done.

-How cool is that? -Jeez.

Mr president, there's no survivors.

[ laughs ]

♪

tory: So where are you guys firing it from?

Right in the next room.

-Oh, whoa. -The red cage.

When you unlock the red cage, that's when the boom comes.

♪

do you guys want to do the countdown?

Yeah.

All right, here we go. In three, two, one...

Whoa! [ laughs ] whoa!

Dude, I was not expecting to feel that in here.

Dude, the whole building shook.

That's crazy.

Tory: In the replay,

you can actually see the way the blast waves

traveled through the urban canyon.

Mike: I mean, it's, like,

kicking up dust almost every single spot.

So the way that the shock works is it's like a balloon.

You're blowing up a balloon. So it goes in three dimensions.

So you get the pressure of the shockwave coming by

and then behind it there's an area

that's a negative phase, it's called.

So everywhere you see dirt kicking up,

that means the shockwave has passed by already.

Tory: Look, I'm still smiling.

You picked the best spot to be on this face of this wall

because the blast wave wraps around over the top,

it comes around here, there's a vortex,

and then it'll come back over here.

-Unfortunately... -His disc is ruptured.

Tory: Dang.

We'll see what the numbers say about my chances of survival,

but for now, I've blown another set of perfectly good eardrums.

Now this guy here. This one really got hit hard.

This one, I don't think there's any chance of survival.

So we know, which one was this.

Oh, this one was over here.

And how did he get over here?

It actually got sucked in by the negative phase

of the blast. -No way!

-That's crazy. -Yeah.

Tory: The negative phase of the blast wave

is like a powerful wind that actually draws objects

back toward the source of the explosion.

So it was almost like a tornado.

It's like a tornado, yeah.

That is rad, but terrifying.

Oh, guess what, tommy? Your -- your dummy's gone.

Yeah, I don't think I saved anybody.

Big surprise.

The one inside may have the best chance of all of surviving

because it's shielded on two sides

and he's kind of in the corner over there,

so he may be shielded a little better even than yours out here.

Tory: We'll see what the numbers say.

But tommy may have picked a good spot.

Being down inside that structure

is probably the safest position possible.

I mean, those blast waves really ricochet, travel everywhere.

It's like the walls almost make it more violent.

Let's check out the pressure data

and see if either of us survived.

This time, we're measuring both the peak overpressure,

which is the amount of force at the blast, most powerful point.

And the total pressure, which is the combined amount of force

experienced during the entire duration of the blast,

including all the ricochets.

-So this first one is you, tory. -Okay.

So the peak overpressure was 7.5 psi.

Tory: 7.4 psi is enough to cause some organ damage

though not necessarily fatal,

but the total pressure was almost 50 psi.

And you probably would not survive the event.

Tory: I mean, I thought I did pretty good.

Aside from the punctured lung and the bleeding,

and drowning from your blood filling up your lungs,

but other than that, fine.

With tommy being inside the block,

he only saw about five psi

and the total pressure that you saw was just about 20.

So you probably have a 60

to 70% chance that you would live.

-You survived. -I made it. I made it.

-I made it. -Oh, I'm so happy.

At least one of us -- as long as one of us survived.

So we've seen what a one ounce letter bomb could do.

We've seen the kinds of blast waves

that 70 pounds anfo could create.

Let's hope we never have to choose what spot to be in

when a blast is about to go off.

Now it's time to go even bigger.

Tommy: There's some junk in that trunk.

-Ugh. -Bad idea.

Oh, god. Yeah, it sneaks up on you.

No chance, I'm surviving.

-Yeah! -[ laughs ]

tory: We've been working with the experts

from new mexico tech to study blast waves

and find out what would be the safest spot in an explosion.

Well, that car looks suspicious.

Tommy: There's some junk in that trunk.

What do we got here?

We got 500 pounds of anfo in the trunk.

-That explains the suspension. -Wow.

Tory: This 500 pound car bomb were to go off in a city

instead of on this bomb range,

it would cause a massive amount of death and destruction

in the surrounding area.

So we did 70 at the canyon and now we're doing 500.

We're gonna step it up a little.

So how big is the shockwave gonna eventually get?

Like, how far out from ground zero?

The shockwave will actually roll all the way up to the hill

to where you guys are going to be at.

Oh, my god.

Similar to the other challenges, our goal is to place our dummies

in the safest possible spot along this wall.

The bikini gauges on their chest

and the pressure gauges around their necks

will tell us if they survived the blast or not.

-I'm confused. -About what?

He said the shockwaves going all the way up the hill.

Yeah, so how is standing behind a wall gonna save us?

Yeah. How are any of these gonna survive?

So if you recall at the urban canyon

we only had a six foot high block

when that shockwave came.

-Right. -This is over 10 feet tall,

so that means the shockwave has to come up and over that wall.

Tory: The wall is used to test another property of blast waves

called a blast shadow.

As a blast wave hits an obstruction

and begins to wrap around, a blast shadow is created.

People and objects in that blast shadow

are protected from the blast wave's concussive force.

That's generally the safest place to be in a blast,

is in a blast shadow of something.

Gotcha.

Back at the urban canyon,

we saw how blast waves can wrap around objects,

so I'm a little skeptical that this wall can protect my dummy.

So what you're saying is a 500-pound blast,

we could actually put him somewhere back here

and he'll survive? -Yes.

Tory: To get the maximum blast shadow protection.

Tommy and I are placing our dummies

in the center of the wall.

Then jon places his dummy in the same spot

with one crucial difference.

He's not gonna be against the wall.

-Oh. -Ah...

We want them to be off the wall.

You already picked your spots, you're stuck.

Tory: Then just for fun, we placed two more dummies

totally outside the blast shadow.

One far behind the wall

and one squarely in front of the wall.

We've got the explosives in the rear end of the car.

So what do you think is gonna come this direction?

-The engine block. -The engine block.

Oh, this is gonna be like a fast ball pitch.

Jon's gonna try to see

if he can hit this dummy with pieces of the car.

It's 50-50 chance everything's got a light right.

That's so awesome. [ laughs ]

we've got one final dummy to checkout.

I swear these guys are keeping the dummy industry afloat.

So what we're looking to see here is if there's enough

of a blast wave to blow out the window

and come and hit this mannequin.

[ speaking indistinctly ]

tommy: He's like, man, this is gonna be good.

All right, should we get to the bunker?

-Yeah, bunker. -Bunker, all right.

Tory: This bunker is different

than the one at the urban canyon.

This one is open on the backside,

which means we can really feel the concussive blast.

You ready for this, dude?

We're, like, not underground.

So you're gonna feel it, dude.

Mike: All right, standby for count. Everybody looking.

Everybody ready? Here we go.

Five, four, three, two, one.

[ explosion ]

-yeah! -[ laughs ]

yeah, it sneaks up on you.

Dude, look at that cloud.

-Oh, my god. -Look at that cloud.

That was so dope.

[ explosion ]

do you really think our dummy survived that?

Dude, the car, there's nothing there.

It's gone. It's like a magic trick.

Now you see it, now you don't.

I don't know how anyone could survive

a massive blast like that,

but let's go find the dummies and check it out.

Oh, my god. Look at the crater. That is insane.

-Crazy. -It's a pretty good hole.

Yeah. [ laughs ]

and look, you hit your dummy.

Yeah, we got him with a bit of suspension parts.

The engine block is pretty much all that's left.

He got snagged up on a little bit of frag.

Got some good aim there, jon.

Tory: All right, so how did we fare?

-[ laughs ] -I don't know what you're doing.

You're doing some yoga or something.

Tried that before.

Jonathan: So that's why you don't sit against the wall

when a shock goes off behind you.

-If you noticed yours moved -- -yeah.

...That one didn't.

We knocked his hat off, but he's still sitting there.

You guys got the shock of the shock waves

going through the wall. -Oh...

It smacked you in the back and knocked you forward.

So like in all those movies and they're like,

they're like, "oh!"

bad idea.

All right, what about this guy?

He got hit and his foils blown out.

So the shockwave just went straight over the wall.

Straight over and hit him. He's definitely dead.

Tory: After checking out the data.

My dummy saw a peak pressure of eight psi

and a total pressure of 54.7 which means...

You're a goner, bro.

Tory: Tommy saw peak pressure at 6.6 psi

and a total pressure of 47.

So even though both of us were safely in the blast shadow,

there was enough concussive force

traveling through the wall to take us both out.

But the mannequin in the chair survived?

Right.

Because he was just in the right space.

He's in the exact right spot. He's in the center of the wall,

so he's protected on three sides from that shockwave

coming around the wall.

And he's not sitting against the wall.

That's what shielding can do for you.

That's amazing.

So we didn't make it this time,

but what about our instagrammer behind the window?

I can't believe this phone survived.

Yeah.

-Whoa. -Oh.

If the blast wave didn't kill him,

the glass definitely would've.

I'd hit him with follow.

Tory: Now that we've learned some strategies

about blast shielding,

we've got one last chance to apply our knowledge

and prove ourselves.

There's no way.

Or you failed the test and we kick you out of school.

Is that really gonna do anything?

I didn't even slow it down.

-What? -Go...Yourself.

♪

tory: We've got one final challenge

here at new mexico tech.

It's time to see if tommy and I

could put together all we've learned about blast waves.

You've learned a lot with all this blast wave work.

Now you're gonna put that knowledge to use

or you failed the test and we kick you out of school.

[ laughs ] oh, great. No pressure.

Here's how this final challenge is gonna work.

We've got two walls.

Tommy's is made out of brick and my wall

is made out of cinder block.

Mike and jon are gonna try to knock them down

with 200 pounds of anfo.

Tommy and I have to try and stop them using only these buckets.

Tommy's are full of water. Mine are filled with sand.

This is gonna be a good test of what you've learned.

So the question is where do we place

-these protective materials? -Right.

Are we going, like, against our wall,

in the middle or right against the explosives.

We're also gonna go back to our tried and true dummies

and see if they can survive the blast waves

from inside the room.

-Good luck. -Whatever.

I was talking to my dummy.

We've learned our lesson from the other glass.

Both of us place our dummies as far away from the blast

as possible in the back corner of the room.

Tommy's up first.

[ laughs ] I just had a good idea.

-Yeah? -Yeah.

I feel like the water is gonna be a factor

in, like, destroying the wall.

So I'm gonna make it as safe as possible

by putting it as far over there

as possible and high so it's not wide.

Okay. Get stacking.

-All right. -All right.

I feel like that's my best bet.

Tory: So sometimes when water is hit

with a really strong explosive force,

it essentially becomes a projectile and inflicts

even more damage than a blast would on its own.

So tommy might be onto something here, maybe.

Well, it's just on a little bit of angle.

Tory: But you know...

Look out for... [ speaks indistinctly ]

tory: ...Probably not.

Uh-oh. I didn't do that.

Tory: After a quick cleanup on aisle seven,

it's time to see if his strategy works.

Let's head back to the bunker and blow this popsicle stand.

Jonathan: Okay, charging.

Do you want to say anything before you say

goodbye to your wall?

Any last words, tommy?

Go...Yourself.

Okay, here we go.

In three, two, one.

[ explosion ]

what the hell?

[ explosion ]

that was huge.

I don't think anything would have stopped

that wall from getting destroyed.

All right, let's go see if you survived.

[ laughs ]

♪

whoa. [ laughs ]

dude, your dummy is gone.

I knew it was gonna be bad.

I didn't know it was gonna be that bad.

Any sign of him yet?

-Nope. -It didn't even slow it down.

Jon huffed and puffed and blew my wall down.

Rotten bastard.

-Hey, there he is. -[ laughs ]

do you want to check the sensors?

See if he survived.

Do you want to catch a fast brick?

I don't think he's gonna survive.

The fact that the sensors are destroyed

pretty much tells us everything we need to know here.

I'm gonna go work on mine. Good luck saving your dummy.

I don't even think there's a way to save these walls

after seeing how big these 200-pound explosions are.

I mean, I think he would have been better off

doing something with those buckets.

But now it's my turn.

My strategy is -- I'm just gonna load up

a bunch of the buckets of sand right next to the blast.

Pile everything up on top of my anfo.

So that way when it goes off, this absorbs all that energy

and then it doesn't reach my wall.

I'm just wondering like what the best way to stack these?

Do I just do like a double wall?

I mean, most of the shockwave is gonna be hello

or do I have, is that it? That's all the buckets I have?

Like some further backs of it.

Hmm, I don't know.

Is that really gonna do anything?

All right there.

Oh, I think that one bucket on top

is just gonna do it for you.

Is that that bucket there for balance?

See? This is what I got to deal with.

[ laughter ]

tory: Forget it. I'm just going to go with my gut.

Let's head to the bunker and see what happens.

-Okay. Is everybody ready? -Ready.

Here we go in three, two, one.

[ explosion ]

-there's no way. -Yours looks like it was bigger.

There's no way that wall survived.

I get the feeling that no matter how I stack my buckets,

that wall was doomed.

Just look at the way the blast reaches

all the way over to tommy's room and knocks debris off the roof

and I'm pretty sure those are some of my bricks

flying through the air.

There's no way.

I can't even see, there's a big cloud of dust.

But as long as I have one tiny cinder block standing,

I'll have done better than tommy.

So your scheme, even though the wall fell down,

it worked pretty good.

There's just a slight amount of debris on the back wall

and your mannequin.

Look, I put him in the right spot.

You put him in the exact right location.

Tory: So just like the walls at the urban canyon

and the bigger wall in the car bomb,

my buckets of sand essentially created a small blast shadow,

which deflected some of the damage.

This same principle has been used to design

military bases for decades.

The fact that you actually put your mitigation scheme

between the wall and the charge made all the difference.

Tommy's if he would have put it next to the charge,

but not in contact with the charge,

it might've worked to help mitigate the blast.

I may have gotten beaten today, but the best part

about explosions is, I mean, hey, we all win

because we've got to watch an explosion.

[ explosion ]

I did suck, though.

Well, it has been a very informative day

here at new mexico tech.

You guys are awesome. Did great job.

Well, we've enjoyed having you guys here

and we hope to see you again soon.

Tory: We sacrificed a lot of dummies to learn one thing --

best place to be in an explosion is as far away as possible.

Not that we're gonna actually heed that advice.

What else can we blow up, tommy?

60 thousand pounds.

That is the most anfo I've ever seen.

-What shouldn't I touch? -I just got more nervous.

-Oh, my... -Whoa!

Man: And action.

♪

action.

On this show, we talk...

[ beeping ]

whose idea was it to shoot

the intro right next to the weigh-in station?

That's what I want to know.

On this show, we talk a lot about blowing stuff up,

but today we're gonna be blowing stuff down.

What?

Tory: We're here at the arizona drilling and blasting company

where they use massive explosions

to turn big rocks into aggregate,

the small stones used in building materials

like concrete and asphalt for their clients

in the construction industry.

They're gonna show us

how they create explosions large enough

to literally move mountains by drilling holes in the earth...

♪

packing them with anfo

and blowing them up.

[ explosion ]

scott, the area manager here at the quarry

has a set of freshly drilled holes

that need a dose of our good old friend anfo.

How much are we using?

60 thousand pounds.

-What? -Jeez.

That is the most anfo I've ever seen.

Are you gonna let us fill the holes?

Yep, as a matter of fact, we got a job waiting for you right now.

[ laughter ]

tory: For centuries, the process of quarrying rocks

required hand tools and hundreds of workers

doing backbreaking labor.

It was generally not a good time,

but then along came explosions and everything got a lot better.

[ explosion ]

the kinds of explosives used in mining

and quarrying have evolved from black powder...

[ explosion ]

...To tnt...

[ explosion ]

...To today's preferred explosive -- anfo,

which is cheap to produce, easy to control, and very powerful.

♪

that whole truck is filled with nothing but anfo.

Absolutely terrifying.

And how many pounds is it there?

20 thousand pounds.

-20 thousand pounds? -Yeah.

When you're dealing with massive amounts of explosives,

safety is key.

At least you would think so.

I love that they just let anfo just spray out everywhere,

like you remember how careful they were with it

up at the bomb range?

And they're just like... [ mimics machinery ]

I don't know.

When we were out in new mexico

and we were, like, handling the anfo

like it was like this precious compound that if we dropped it,

it was gonna blow up in our faces.

Jon: Don't pour it too fast now.

Tory: Out here, these guys are just dumping it everywhere.

It's like they're having a good time.

All right, should we start filling holes?

Yep, let's do it.

Yeah, here we go.

[ horn honks ]

oh, no. All right. I just got a little bit more nervous.

All right, man, I know I'm supposed to be driving

this really dangerous truck right now,

but, like, what shouldn't I touch?

-Everything. -[ laughs ]

-that's not a good help. -Yeah.

Tory: The first job is doing

something called priming the hole.

Anfo is what's called a tertiary explosive.

That means he can't be set off directly by fire or by impact,

instead it needs a primary explosive,

in this case, a small blasting cap of black powder,

and a secondary explosive called a booster.

When triggered, the blasting cap is ignited remotely,

which sets off the booster, which in turn sets off the anfo.

Hey, man, get out of the way,

I ain't got time for stupid today.

Tory: Once the hole is primed,

it's time for tony to bring over the anfo.

He kind of looks like he worked here already, huh?

Yeah, he looks like that guy over there.

-That's his brother. -[ laughs ]

yeah. That's the boom juice.

All right.

Hey, man, you ready for a squishy?

Tory: As tommy delivers the boom juice,

I'm measuring how much he's using.

That's a lot of anfo.

It's like a really, really dangerous video game.

-Exactly. -We're there.

We're there. Whoo!

How many holes did we have to fill?

98 holes.

-98? -98.

Tory: 98 is a lot of holes. Let's speed this up.

I think it's time for a montage.

Release the anfo!

Yeah, man.

We're there.

All right, we're there.

Moving on.

Let her rip.

♪

you're good.

On to the next.

♪

there we go, perfect.

I feel good.

I feel like the most dangerous part of this whole day

is having tommy behind the wheel.

I'm doing my dream job right now, filling hot holes, man.

Yeah, it's like your wedding night.

Only better. It's not gonna be so disappointing.

[ laughs ]

tory: When we filled the holes up with anfo,

we left about 16 feet of space at the top.

That's because we need to top them off

with stemming material, which sits on top of the anfo

and forces the blast to break up the rock.

It doesn't sound like much,

but it's actually a really important step.

So, like, if you don't pack

the rock enough on top of the anfo,

what happens?

Basically that hole is just gonna shoot

a big wide puff of smoke straight up in the air.

And you don't want to see that?

No, because then that means nothing around this whole area

is broken up now for them to dig.

Tory: With the stemming process complete,

it's time to blow this mountain to bits.

♪

[ alarm wailing ]

we're about to set off 60,000 pounds of anfo

and knock the side of the hill down.

You excited?

We've been hearing about anfo

and how that has the heaving power, the pushing power.

Now we're gonna see it firsthand.

Let's light this hill on fire.

All right, guys, we all ready?

Attention personnel,

firing in ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five...

Fire in the hole!

[ explosion ]

-oh, that was awesome. -Oh, man.

That whole mountain just, like, lifted up.

♪

that was a lot of energy.

-Dude. -That was sick.

-We're like regular quarrymen, -I got get me one of these.

Yeah, get you one of those.

This was amazing to witness.

All that anfo just released

roughly the same amount of energy is an earthquake.

Now you know what 60,000 pounds looks like.

Tory: In just a matter of seconds,

we transform a solid mountain

into 61,000 cubic yards of building material.

You guys ready to go do it again?

Yes, sir.

The next one is gonna be a lot better.

Awesome.

Better than that?

Oh, hell, yeah.

-A little bit higher out here. -I felt this whole earth shake.

Go faster, guys.

Oh, oh, oh...

-That's wild. -That was worth all of this.

♪

ooh, a little bit higher out here.

Yeah, so on the other side of these holes is a 90-foot cliff.

So what's the difference between this quarry and the last quarry?

We're blasting a little bit different material.

We're blasting dolomite on the other side we were on.

This is conglomerate.

Tory: Conglomerate is tougher to blast apart.

So the holes have to be drilled in a tighter pattern

and they need to use even more anfo.

Now on the last shot

we use about 1,100 pounds of anfo per hole.

How much are we using on these holes?

So these holes up here are about 1,430 pounds in total.

-Per hole. -Per hole.

And that's just because

the material here is much stronger.

Yeah, because if you look at the way

the material lays in there,

it kind of lays out an angle this way, going along the wall,

so we're trying to use the lay of the rock,

how it's laid in there to shoot against it

to hopefully get the better fragmentation.

So it's not just about breaking it down,

it's about the size of the debris.

Yeah.

Tory: Once scott and his team

get the rock broken down into a manageable size,

it can get fed into machines

and eventually turned into building materials

like concrete.

Everything here just seems like

it's a lot more involved in the last site.

Yeah, the last site it's pretty straight forward.

But this is the stuff that I really like

because there's a lot of planning

and everything that went into laying that shot out

and drilling it the way that we did.

Tory: The plan here is to time the explosions

in a specific sequence

so they use the leverage of the cliff side

to push the material out and away from the site.

If everything goes right,

they'll leave a straight line at the back

and push all of the material forward

where it's ready to be hauled away.

The anfo has arrived.

Think we're gonna get this done before sun down?

If we get going right now, we should have her licked.

Well, then why don't we just get out of your way

and we'll just be your cheerleaders.

That would be awesome.

I have feeling this is gonna go a lot faster

with us out of their way.

I don't feel like we sucked that bad.

I don't know, kind of feel like we do.

Now I know it may seem at first glance

that tommy and I got demoted,

but the way I look at it, it was a promotion.

We're not working. We're actually foremen now.

Hey scott, you're doing a great job.

Yeah, man. That mix looks great, the hole looks great.

You guys are doing awesome, man.

We're management, baby, middle management.

All right, how are we looking?

We're all loaded up. All that's left to do now

is the stemming so we can get this thing blown by sunset.

All right, let's get the heck out of here.

It all comes down to this.

Time to see if all of scott's hard work

and our extremely important supervision will payoff.

♪

oh, here we go.

[ beeps ]

-irish, are you still clear? -Yep.

-Travis, you steal clear? -Yeah, we are.

So you're gonna say, "attention personnel,"

blasting 10 to five and then...

Attention personnel, blasting in ten,

nine, eight, seven,

six, five...

Fire in the hole.

[ explosion ]

-oh! -Whoa!

What?

♪

oh, my god. That was worth all of this.

That legit felt this whole earth shake.

-Dude! -[ speaks indistinctly ]

tory: As you could see, it went exactly according to plan.

[ explosion ]

tory: The precise timing of scott's charges creates an angle

that naturally pushes the material forward

and away from the mountain.

♪

look at the dust cloud.

-That's wild, man. -I know.

Pretty amazing what that stuff can do.

Yeah, and all that hard work,

up in, like, a millisecond.

Pretty much.

Tory: Now that the rock is broken up,

it's time to start hauling it down the hill.

All right, scott, thank you so much

for the hospitality, man. It's been a blast. [ laughs ]

thanks for coming out, guys. We appreciate all your help.

Thank you for letting us get in your way

and letting us blow stuff up. This was awesome.

Any time you guys want to come back, you're more than welcome.

Thanks, buddy.

I mean, don't tease me with a good time.

[ laughs ]

oh wait, we're all driving to the same truck?

-Yep. -This is awkward.

We've got to say goodbyes again.