Crews enter final phase before tomorrow’s blast.
Explosives engineers from Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) are today making final preparations for the implosion of Wetzel Hall at Western Illinois University on Saturday, July 14 at 7:00 am local time.
They have been going door-to-door in the neighborhoods near the building to talk about what to expect and to review evacuation procedures.
James Santoro of Controlled Demolition, Inc said the implosion might sound like a loud thunderstorm to those near the site when the building comes down. It might sound like a car backfiring to those a bit further away.
“I would think most people several blocks away won’t even know that it’s going on,” says CDI’s James Santoro.
Just a shell of the building remains. Many of the items in the building have been removed. It’s estimated 95 percent of the building’s materials will be recycled/repurposed.
Santoro said the building should fall pretty much within its footprint.
“We do that by removing columns in a sequential fashion, moving from one point in the building to another point with delays of about a half-second between those column eliminations,” Santoro said.
“That allows us to control the rate of failure and the direction that the building is being pulled in.”
Demolition of the building is part of the WIU Master Plan. The school will landscape the site into a park.
Read more or listen to an audio interview with James Santoro here.
