Waterfront building broke in half during Superstorm Sandy

It’s been three weeks since Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the East Coast, and the damage at one beach is so bad that crews actually have to demolish one of the waterfront buildings.

The cleanup is ongoing at Narragansett Town Beach, and we’re told that demolition will begin today.

An estimated 20,000 yards of sand was lost during the storm, and piles are currently sitting in nearby parking lots, waiting to be returned to the shoreline.

The force of the water heavily damaged part of the cabanas on the beach, one half spun around and now sits facing the opposite direction.

“We took a substantial hit, particularly with the storm surge,” said Steven Wright, Director of Narragansett Parks and Recreation. “Storm surge lifted them off their foundation and then split them in half, and we’re actually going to be demolishing those today.”

Read more here or view video below:

Crews forced to demolish Narragansett building

Warning – This clip contains VERY bad language and VERY stupid people.

It is not unusual to see a skid steer loader on a demolition site. Indeed, with their maneuvrability and tool-carrying capabilities, they have become an invaluable part of the average demolition man’s equipment armoury.

But their role in the demolition world is usually secondary; carrying out small-scale breaking, rehandling debris, that kind of thing. It is rare to see a skid steer employed as the prime mover in a demolition environment. And, as the following video clearly demonstrates, there’s a very good reason for that.

Highland cottage continually vandalised in wake of child sex reports.

A Highland cottage owned by late TV presenter Jimmy Savile could be demolished as a last resort if it continues to be vandalised.

Allt Na Reigh, in Glencoe, was targeted at the weekend by vandals, who reportedly sprayed it with orange paint.

Last month, Northern Constabulary confirmed that “abusive slogans” were painted on the walls of the property after child and sex abuse allegations against the former Top Of The Pops and Jim’ll Fix It host emerged.

The words “Jimmy The Beast” were painted across the front of the building while “Beast” was sprayed over a side wall.

Officers have searched the cottage to look for “any evidence of any others being involved in any offending with him”. But the Metropolitan Police refused to comment on reports that more than 20 allegations of abuse are being investigated there.

Plans to turn the remote property into a respite care centre for the disabled were halted when the Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust closed down in the wake of the growing scandal.
Highland councillor Andrew Baxter, who represents the Fort William and Ardnamurchan ward, said: “I think it (demolition) is a final option. It is certainly one that I have heard suggested by local residents.

“The general feeling amongst the community is that we would want to distance ourselves from Jimmy Savile and the fact that he lived here and perhaps perpetrated some of his vile crimes here, and move on.”

Read more here.

Contractor fined over incident at Old Trafford cricket ground.

A demolition firm has appeared in court after part of a stand collapsed onto an excavator driver at Old Trafford Cricket Ground.

The 33-year-old worker from Warrington, who has asked not to be named, suffered serious injuries when a two-tonne concrete slab landed on his vehicle’s cab.

Warrington-based Excavation and Contracting (UK) Ltd was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following an investigation into the incident at the Talbot Road ground, home to Lancashire County Cricket Club, on 26 April last year.

Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard the company had been hired to demolish a two-tier stand at the stadium. However, the work had not been planned properly and the excavator had been positioned too close to the stand being demolished.

The worker sustained fractures to both legs in several places and severe cuts and bruising when a four-metre wide slab fell from the upper floor onto his vehicle.

Excavation and Contracting (UK) Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 by failing to ensure the safety of workers and failing to plan and carry out the demolition work safely.

The company, of West Quay Road in Warrington, was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay £12,000 in prosecution costs.

Read more here.

First phase of Blanchette Bridge demolition competed with big bang.

Almost 700 tonnes of structural steel was dropped into the Missouri River yesterday as the first phase of the demolition of the Blanchette Bridge took out the West Truss Span.

“We’ve got to take a lot of steel down in a short amount of time. This was just the most efficient way to do it,” says MoDot Area Engineer Tom Evers.

He says crews are on a tight schedule. “They have 48 hours to take out this span. And the next blast, they’ll have a shorter amount of time because they’re in the navigation channel. So they’ll have 24 hours to take that one out.”

Tom Evers says demolition will continue through December, and the rebuilding begins in 2013.

Read more here, or view the video below:

Downtown Dallas witnesses implosion of 88-year old tower.

A crowd watched yesterday morning as the eight-storey building on Wood Street in downtown Dallas imploded. With a loud bang, the building collapsed, leaving behind a huge cloud of dust. Trucks soon got to work, clearing the site of bricks, debris and chunks of facade.

For nearly 20 years, the Thomas Building has stood vacant, but it has a storied place in Dallas history. It was built by Dallas cotton tycoon Mike Thomas in the 1920s, when the cotton industry was booming. Located next to the old Cotton Exchange building, it housed Thomas’ business and other cotton brokers.

The brick and carved stone building was designed by Anton Korn, a Dallas architect who designed dozens of Park Cities mansions in the 1920s and 1930s.

More recently, the building had fallen into neglect. In 2004, it was listed as an endangered building by Preservation Dallas.

On Sunday, the building collapsed into debris under the supervision of Dallas Demolition, a family business founded by Roy Lohden.

Micor calls upon The Beast of Demolition Island.

Planning is everything in the demolition business; but when the demolition work is taking place – effectively – at sea, planning takes on a whole new importance.

This was the task facing Michael Corridan at Micor Demolition who was awarded the contract to demolish the Upper Harbour Ammunitioning Facility (UHAF) in the middle of the Solent off the coast of Gosport, Hampshire. Not only was he required to plan the demolition in the normal manner, he also had to take into account unusual factors such as tide times, ship movements, and ensuring that the men and machines working from the “demolition island” were fueled.

This in itself was no mean feat. One of the machines in question was The Beast, the Kocurek-modified Hitachi EX1200 excavator owned and operated by Heavy Decom International (HDI). Weighing in at 200 tonnes, The Beast was readily consuming some 20,000 litres of fuel each week throughout the duration of the contract, all of which had to be delivered by tug from nearby Gosport.

Despite its thirst, the machine made light of work of the demolition of a pair of naval grade, reinforced concrete bollards and the ship-loading cranes that stood on top of them. Equipped with an 11 tonne Mantovanibenne CR100 concrete crusher, The Beast quickly took down the bollards to a depth of one metre below the sea bed. Guided by a camera mounted on a second excavator, The Beast then removed all arisings from the sea bed, loading out into a barge that transported the debris back to port for further processing.

For a clearer indication of the challenges facing the joint Micor and HDI team, please check out the epic and exclusive new movie from the DemolitionNews video crew below:

East Chicago contractor prevented from winning contract over previous delays.

Reports of performance issues with an East Chicago-based contractor were aired as the Hammond Redevelopment Commission chose a company to demolish an old train slab.

The company, Actin/Tri Contracting, LLC, was the low bidder for the contract at $126,300, but commissioners instead awarded the work to another contractor for $317,000.

The project will demolish an old concrete slab that once served as a rail loading area at 173rd Street and Lyman Avenue. The elevated slab is considered a safety issue because it is near homes.

The consulting engineer on the project presented commissioners a letter listing issues with Actin on another demolition project in the city.

In the letter, John Blosky, of Amereco, Inc., tells commissioners that Actin fell 15 days behind schedule during the demolition of a property on Conkey Street.

Blosky also said he doesn’t believe the timetable of 15 to 20 days the company proposes for the slab project is achievable.

Actin’s bid also came in at approximately half of the engineering estimate for the project.

Commissioners unanimously approved awarding the project to GE Marshall, which was the second lowest of the three bids submitted for the project.

Read more here.

NYC contractors braced for post-Sandy clean up work.

The city plans to start demolishing homes on Staten Island that sustained the worst damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Where a building’s structure is dangerously unsafe, the city may demolish it even if it has been unable to reach the owners, a city spokesman told the Advance.

“We are making every effort to reach out to homeowners who have red tags,” said Peter Spencer, the Bloomberg administration’s special storm liaison for Staten Island. “We will not demolish a home without notifying the homeowner unless that home is in imminent danger of collapse, which obviously makes it a threat to homes around it as well.”

About 200 homes will be leveled by bulldozers in the days ahead — primarily detached homes on Staten Island and in Queens and Brooklyn, according to a New York Times report. About 500 more homes face inspection and possibly the same fate.

Read more here.

We are trialing a system that will give you exclusive access to unpublished video content.

Tomorrow, we will be unveiling the latest film from our in-house video crew. And this one will feature the most-talked-about demolition machine of the past few years: The Beast owned and operated by Heavy Decom International.

We caught up with the machine operating of the South Coast of England just a few weeks ago and the resulting “mini-epic” film is now ready for launch.

However, we are also taking the opportunity to trial a system called “Pay With a Tweet”.

In order to view the film the day before its launch, all you have to do is Tweet about it using the button below. There’s no financial cost; just the time it takes you Twitter users out there to do your thing.

And don’t worry – If you haven’t yet been bitten by the Twitter bug, the video will go live here tomorrow morning.