Explosive demolition drops bridge span into Hudson River.

Within the past few minutes, the Eastern span of the old Tappan Zee bridge has been demolished by a controlled explosion.

Original plans called for the Tappan Zee to be removed piece by piece and avoid the use of explosives, which could have an impact on Hudson River fish habitats. Environmental experts, however, determined the old bridge was structurally unsound, preventing workers from continuing the piecemeal takedown.

Worker dies during demolition work at old Delaware GM plant.

Delaware authorities say a demolition company leader died while supervising work at an old automobile plant.

Delaware State Police said Saturday the death occurred Friday afternoon at the former General Motors plant in Wilmington, which closed in 2009.

Police say its initial investigation shows Atlantic Coast Dismantling was performing demolition work at the plant that involved using heavy machinery and cables to take down steel beams.

The news release says a cable snapped, striking head foreman Paul Leary of Miami. The 64-year-old Leary died at the scene.

Explosive end to roof of Milwaukee stadium.

Demolition crews in Milwaukee, used explosives Sunday morning to demolish the roof of the Bradley Center, former home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.

Crews have been slowly deconstructing the 30-year-old building piece by piece since it closed last summer, but used a controlled blast to bring down the roof at 9:02 am local time.

The blast was carried out by Advantage Blasting & Demolition.

Plant hirer cites Carillion fallout as it slides into administration.

More than 80 staff have been made redundant at a Shropshire-based Hawk Plant, which has been involved in landmark projects such as the 2012 Olympic Park and the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, after it entered administration.

Hawk Plant (UK) had a turnover of a turnover of £93.5 million in the financial year to the end of December 2017. It employed some 420 people and has been operating for more than 40 years.

Construction Enquirer is reporting that the company ran into debt problems after being hit for around £800,000 from the collapse of Carillion and a problem contract in Sierra Leone.

Sam Woodward, Alex Williams and Hunter Kelly of EY’s restructuring team have been appointed joint administrators of the business and its subsidiaries Hawk Plant Hire, Hawk Hire, Safety and Training, Hawk Plant, and Hawk Plant Sales.

“The group’s cashflow had been impacted by a number of historical problematic contracts and a delay in the commencement of anticipated projects. Coupled with this, the group’s funding structure, with significant hire purchase and finance lease commitments put pressure on the cashflow at a time that asset utilisation was comparatively low. We will now begin the process of seeking to find a suitable buyer for Hawk, to ensure the best possible outcome for all of the group’s stakeholders. In the meantime, we will seek to minimise the impact on the customer base by keeping assets on hire and maintaining service levels,” Woodward says. “It is with regret that 83 people have been made redundant. Our specialist team will work with those affected to help them claim outstanding wages and other payments due from the Redundancy Payments Office.”

Read more here.

Milwaukee arena braced for roof blast.

Demolitions experts on Sunday will finish the work promised by rockers Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones: Blow the roof off the Bradley Center.

A ring of explosives will be detonated on the joints that support the massive roof trusses on the 30-year-old arena which closed last summer.

The goal is to “lower the trusses down to a lower level, to a much safer level, so the workers aren’t 100 feet off the ground trying to demo the roof structure” in the months ahead, said Mike Abrams of Icon, the company representing the Milwaukee Bucks for the project.

Abrams and others involved in the demolition spoke last week at a Common Council Public Works Committee meeting where they successfully sought permission to temporarily close West State Street and North Vel Phillips Avenue during the work early Sunday.

The Bucks obtained control over the old arena as part of the agreement that led to the construction of Fiserv Forum, their new $524 million home next door. The Bucks see the 7-acre site as a crucial part of the development potential around their new arena.

Demolition has begun in earnest from inside the closed arena and Sunday’s event will be a dramatic step forward.

Read more here.

By ‘eck – Time for a trip down t’memory lane with the incomparable Graham Wilson.

There are several key indicators that you’re getting old. Football players, policemen and shop assistants appearing ridiculously young; having to scroll down endlessly online to find the appropriate year of birth; and using what were once considered everyday expressions such as “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” only to be met by looks of confusion and consternation by your children.

And we can add to that list when YouTube lists a video as “old time TV” and it features someone that you don’t just recognise but who you actually worked with.

Case in point, this trip down memory lane and a BBC TV show from 1987 called Demolition Man featuring one Graham Wilson of Demex. I got to know Graham many years after this was shot, of course. By then, he was a clog-wearing firebrand with rather more salt than pepper in both his beard and his hair. But he remained every bit as forthright and pure Yorkshire as he is in this remarkable film.

Crowds gather to watch controlled blast in downtown Austin.

Downtown Austin’s Sunday started off with a bang as a parking garage was imploded at 8:30 am local time.

The parking garage was demolished with explosives by a private contractor. For the safety of the community, officials from the Austin Police Department and the UT Austin Parking and Transportation Services asked that people avoid the area during the demolition.

Controlled blast fells five Kentucky coal silos.

Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland acting as explosives contractor to Lexington Coal Company, LLC of Milton, West Virginia has carried out the preparation for and explosives felling of one 29 metre tall reinforced concrete silo and four 29 metre tall, tandem reinforced concrete coal silos in Threeforks, Kentucky.

Whisper it quietly – We just gained our 50,000th Instagram follower.

If you have been following our journey on the Instagram social media platform, you will know that we made quite a song and dance back in February about the fact that we had attracted our 15,000th follower. You will know also that we celebrated getting our 25,000th follower with another unseemly display of self-regard and egotism.

But with experience comes maturity and humility. And having today gained our 50,000th follower (317 days after we gained our 15,000th) we have made a suitably modest year end video that – I think you will agree – marks this auspicious occasion with the appropriate restraint and our now trademark subtlety.

Erith Contractors deliver explosive end to the working year.

Erith Contractors changed the South Cambridgeshire skyline forever yesterday with an explosive demolition event at the Barrington Cement Works.

The company successfully carried out the controlled detonation of the 62 metre high chimney, located at the former Cemex site in Cambridgeshire.

Works began on the Cement Works site in August this year, clearing structures around the mills, precipitators, kilns and boiler structures to create the necessary room to fell the chimney. During this time, a demolition sequence was engineered by Erith, working hand-in-hand with Swanton Consulting, to model the demolition sequence and check the stability and proposed collapse mechanisms.