Superb drone work captures raceway tower destruction.
It has stood sentry over the ISM Raceway (Formerly Phoenix Raceway) in Arizona for many years.
But, as this short but superb video shows, that era is over as the tower was felled safely this weekend.
Time-lapse captures overnight bridge demolition.
Project Neon crews began demolishing the Martin Luther King Boulevard bridge at U.S. 95 in downtown Las Vegas on April 20.
The bridge needed to be replaced due to its age and a larger bridge is needed. The rubble will be used as reused as fill material. This time lapse video from the NDOT shows the demolition.
Summer deadline for double blast.
A pair of cooling towers in North Jacksonville will be imploded this summer.
The city issued a permit for Total Wrecking & Environmental LLC to implode the 464-foot-tall concrete cooling towers at the St. Johns River Power Park at 11201 New Berlin Road.
Total Wrecking & Environmental is the contractor for the job, listed at a cost of $14.5 million. It did not provide details about the implosion.
On Nov. 16, Total Wrecking was awarded the demolition contract including an additional scope to demolish equipment and other structures and to restore the site to an industrial standard for a total bid of $17,737,420.
Total Wrecking, based in the Buffalo suburb of Tonawanda, New York, is a national company with three generations in the demolition business.
JEA and Florida Power & Light Co. co-own the power park. The Florida Public Service Commission approved the plant closing in September.
Read more here.
Implosion fells disused sugar crane.
Beauty, it appears, is very much in the eye of the beholder. Because when Tristan Rakowski of Rakowski Cartage & Wrecking sent us the video below, he largely dismissed it as “nothing large but fun to watch”.
We beg to differ. Check out this awesome multi-angle film that captures the implosion of a disused sugar crane in New Brunswick. Huge thanks to videographer Julien Raby for allowing us to share this stunning film.
Team behind Rampage movie took inspiration from real-life earthquake devastation.
The demolition of Wellington’s Reading Cinema car park in New Zealand inspired Kiwi visual effects giant Weta Digital to create Rampage’s scenes of destruction.
Directed by Brad Peyton, the sci-fi fantasy tells the story of a rogue genetic experiment that went awry, as three animals mutate into raging creatures and tear across Chicago destroying everything in their path.
A Weta Digital crew travelled to Chicago to understand the effects of what those mutated animals might do if they were let loose in the city, VFX Supervisor Erik Winquist said.
“Some of the buildings that we tear apart were among the very first skyscrapers that were built in Chicago way back in the late-1800s, early-1900s, so there was a broad range of architectural styles that we had to replicate in that work as well.”
Weta Digital needed to understand the bones of the building – a point pushed strongly in all Weta Digital produced work by Weta’s senior visual effects artist Joe Letteri .
“In order to tear it down in a believable way when the monsters tear into it, we need to see the internals of that building,” Winquist said.
Winquist had seen those internals first hand during the demolition that had to take place after the recent earthquakes in Wellington. “It gave us an opportunity to go out with cameras and get lots of really good photo references, like when the Reading carpark was being taken down, along with some of the old buildings in the CBD – they gave us a really great look into learning what is inside these buildings because some of them are of similar era to some of the buildings that we had to do in Chicago.”
Read more here.
NFDC agrees to promote from within rather than reinstating president.
The National Council of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors predictably has chosen to promote from within rather than reinstate ousted president Paul Brown or to welcome “stalking horse” entrant and former NFDC Convention Chairman Patrick Williamson. Instead, presidential responsibilities will fall to vice president Martin O’Donnell and second vice president Holy Price.
In a statement issued after yesterday’s meeting, the Federation said:
The National Council of the NFDC are pleased to announce that the existing Vice President and 2nd Vice President will jointly fulfil the role of the President for the interim period through to the 2019 AGM.
Their role will be fully supported by National Council in accordance with the Memorandum and Articles of Association (2005 edition) and the 2016 version of the Federation Rules.
This decision was reached by National Council on 24/04/18 and will ensure that the term in office remains aligned with the Regional changes to officers and therefore eligible future Presidential Candidates.
Paul Brown appointed director of Total Reclaims.
DemolitionNews understands that recently-ousted NFDC President Paul Brown has been appointed as a director of Nottingham-based Total Reclaims Limited.
Total Reclaims is a widely-respected national demolition contractor that has apparently set its sights on winning more work in London and the South East. With decades of experience in precisely that region, Paul Brown could be the key to the company’s strategic southward expansion.
Total Reclaims is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary; and the addition of Brown as a director is a further statement of intent for this ambitious company.
Of course, this appointment could have wider implications. Paul Brown was forced to resign as NFDC President when his employment with Lowery Demolition came to an end just a few weeks ago.
But he is now back in employment, at director level, with a well-regarded NFDC member company; and no replacement has yet been named.
The National Council of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors is scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss and possibly appoint an interim president. With Brown now back in employment, those discussions could yet prove to be redundant.
Such a return would be unprecedented. But given the number of twists and turns this saga has already taken, nobody would be surprised if Brown regained his presidency.
Section of Scranton Bridge collapses onto carriageway below.
Demolition of the old Scranton Bridge was scheduled to take one to two days; in the end, it took just a matter of seconds as a section collapsed almost immediately as demolition began.
PennDOT shut down the Central Scranton Expressway several hours before the bridge demolition began.
“What was expected to take one or two days ended up taking one or two seconds this morning, around 5 o’clock in the morning,” said PennDOT official James May. “They were hammering up top and the entire first span over top of the Central Scranton Expressway did collapse down onto itself. The reason that we closed the expressway and the reason that we took the safety precautions that we did was because we knew this would be a possibility. It was not the plan but we knew it was a possibility.”
Blast boom audible across state lines.
The implosion of two steel stacks in Lawrenceburg, Ind. were loud enough to be heard across state lines and had some concerned.
Lawrenceburg Fire Chief confirmed that the two 400 foot stacks were part of the AEP Power Plant that were imploded Wednesday morning.
Local news station FOX19 received multiple calls of concern over the loud, booming noise that came from the implosion.
Turbine hall laid to rest in balletic and subtle fashion.
The turbine hall at Munmorrah Power Station could have gone out with a flash and a crash and a bang. But award-winning Australian demolition giant Liberty Industrial instead chose to drop the stripped structure with considerably less fuss.
The result was not less impressive, however:
Induced Collapse of Munmorah Power Station Turbine Hall from Liberty Industrial on Vimeo.
