Demolition triumphs are quickly forgotten, but mistakes live on in infamy.
This morning, along with the usual offers of Viagra and penis enlargements, my email inbox contained a message that filled my heart with a mix of dread and loathing. The reason for my fear was due to the fact that the message was marked “Demolition Fail” and I knew, without even opening the accompanying video attachment, that it was the latest example of the Turkish building performing a forward roll that we featured on Demolition News some months ago.
Now I have just checked my deleted items and I can tell you that I have been sent the same piece of video (or links to it) no less than 37 times. I have also just done a quick recap of my Twitter feed and I find that this same video has been picked up by my search engine more than 100 times. And on YouTube, one version of the same video has been viewed more than 120,000 times.
You see, in the days of print media, a story of this type generally lasted about as long as that edition of the newspaper: Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper, as the UK adage would have it.
But in the world of digital media, just about everything we do is added to the constantly-evolving cyberspace landscape and will remain there long after we’ve all hung up our hard hats and safety boots.
Which is why I firmly believe that demolition contractors need to think twice before speaking to or involving the non-trade press in any way, shape or form?
Want to know why? Let me give you some examples.
We recently followed the run-up to the implosion of a chimney in Leicestershire here in the UK. The opportunity to “press the button” had been auctioned off to raise money for charity, the local newspapers and radio and TV channels had been informed, and – seemingly best of all – one of the presenters from the TV programme Top Gear was expected to be on hand.
Come the appointed hour when the button was pressed and, thanks apparently to some faulty detonators, nothing happened.
Now to the average “blaster”, such an eventuality was not entirely without precedent, which is why the contractor in question had a high reach excavator on hand to subsequently push the chimney over.
However, to the national press, this was news indeed. Not only did the chimney fail to fall but the Top Gear presenter had failed to show up as well. As a result, the contractor in question – a highly professional and well-trained outfit – made perhaps their one and only appearance in a national newspaper linked forever to a job that had gone a little awry.
But there’s worse. Let’s try a little role-play.
Imagine you had overseen the explosive demolition of a bridge that had sent a foot long shard of copper shrapnel through the roof of a nearby house, and several houses have had windows broken by flying debris, even though they had apparently been assured that they were in a safe zone.
At this point, a local news reporter sticks a microphone under your nose and asks: “Well, how do you think it went?” What do you say?
a. “No comment”
b. “We’re still assessing things and will be able to provide you with a full statement just as soon as our investigations are complete.”
c. “I think we hit a home run here. I am tickled to death.”
If you answered a, the chances are that you have been watching too many TV movies and believe that the term “no comment” will be construed as a declaration of innocence.
If you answered b, you’ve probably had some media training and have just afforded yourself some thinking time in which to address the concerns and complaints of local residents whilst preparing a formal statement.
If you answered c, you should almost certainly have all your media liaison privileges revoked with immediate effect, regardless of your position within your company or your stature in the industry.
Sounds like a joke, right? Well, in truth, I have written this, in part, for comedic effect. But the fact is that this is based upon a real event and real quotes from a contract in Pittsburgh earlier this year. And here we are, five months later, and those quotes live on.
And, sadly, it is not just the single contractor that is tarnished with this but the entire demolition industry.
In the UK, the National Federation of Demolition Contractors now requires each of its members to have a site audited for best practice as a prerequisite of membership, and the Institute of Demolition Engineers offers a formal qualification for its members. In the US, the National Demolition Association runs its Demolition Academy sessions, again to promote best practice. And even the European Demolition Association, traditionally a forum for cross-border politics, has attempted to lobby the European Parliament to promote the cause of demolition professionalism.
Yet all that can be undermined in an instant.
Demolition, particularly explosive demolition, may be an art but it is an imprecise science. An unforeseen defect in a structure’s composition CAN result in debris flying further than calculations and previous experience might suggest; a change in wind direction CAN deposit plumes of dust in precisely the area we were trying to avoid.
How you handle such eventualities on the day and, moreover, how you handle them with the press will dictate whether you’re seen as a king for a day or a fool for a lifetime.
