Criticism over drone video is justified but misplaced.

I will preface what I am about to say by reiterating my desire for a totally safe demolition industry in which every worker goes home alive and in one piece at the end of each shift. And I am in no way condoning bad or unsafe practice.

But the ongoing furore surrounding the drone video that we posted last week hints at an industry that has lost sight of the bigger picture; one that is far happier pointing out the shortcomings of others than confronting and addressing their own.

We publish around 1,000 news items each year; that’s an average of around three a day, 365 days of the year. Those news items might range from the introduction of a new product to the publication of a new set of guidance; from the successful completion of a complex contract to the tragic death of a demolition worker killed in the line of duty.

Typically, very few people bother to comment on these news items, although some do send us email messages and call us on the telephone to comment, congratulate, or take exception to our line of reporting. And we have grown accustomed to writing for a silent majority.

But put up a video showing questionable practice, and suddenly your inbox is overflowing with bile and vitriol and you can’t move for armchair experts all keen to wag an accusing finger at a fellow contractor; to point out why that bad practice would never happen on one of THEIR sites; how bad practice is somehow confined to ‘lesser’ contractors.

And yet their declarations of innocence and expertise are not borne out by accident statistics. In the past few years alone, accidents and fatalities have befallen some of the biggest, best-known, most-respected and officially-accredited demolition contractors in the UK. Furthermore, when accidents do happen, they are quickly swept under the nearest available carpet until the Health and Safety Executive gets around to cleaning house, at which point (usually several years later) the uncomfortable truth is laid bare. At that time, even though someone has been hurt or killed and a contractor has been found complicit, the silent majority reverts to type and a hush falls over them.

Don’t get me wrong. I welcome comments and even criticism as they are the fuel that powers our ongoing improvement. But before you hit the comment button (and even if, like me, you’re not even remotely religious) think over this Biblical quote:

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.

Here endeth our latest lesson.

Turkish locals atonished to discover the disappearance of a bridge in Kocaeli province.

Ambitious thieves have stolen an entire bridge, apparently for its scrap metal, in the western province of Kocaeli in Turkey.

The 22-ton bridge, which was 25 meters long, was in a village in Kocaeli’s Gölçük district and was regularly used by villagers to cross a creek to reach their orchards. The villagers were astonished to discover the disappearance of the bridge on Monday morning as they were making their way to the orchards and immediately alerted the police.

Police arrived at the scene and determined that the bridge had been cut apart and loaded onto a truck by the thieves.

Mustafa Karakaş, one of the villagers, told the İhlas news agency that he couldn’t understand how a bridge could be stolen, saying it was unbelievable.

“Now we have to take our socks off and cross the creek,” Karakaş said.

Read more here.

U.S. 281 bridge implosion knocked out 911 and phone service in three counties.

Local media reports are suggesting that the weekend’s implosion of the U.S. 281 bridge was felt 20 miles away and knocked out 911 and phone service in three counties.

KXAN reports that cell phones stopped working along with first responder radios and confirmed the 911 call centers in Marble Falls, Burnet and Llano were knocked offline.

The Texas Department of Transportation has been working on a $30 million project to replace the four-lane bridge over the Colorado River with two roomier spans.

Experts opted for explosives instead of taking apart the 77-year-old metal-and-concrete bridge. Contractors will remove debris from the water and recycle as much as possible.

Read more here.

Google translation of AF Decom article contains questionable phrase.

The advertising world is filled with possibly apocryphal stories of supposedly well-intentioned phrases getting mangled or misunderstood in translation.

Perhaps the most famous of all was the Coca Cola slogan “Coke adds life” which, if the world wide web is to be believed, translates to “Coke brings your ancestors back from the dead” in Mandarin Chinese. Then there was the famous Vauxhall Nova which, as the Spanish speakers among you will know, translates to the Vauxhall Doesn’t Go.

We would have thought that in the days of Google Translate, Babelfish and various other high tech, computerised translation services, such mistakes might be a thing of the past.

Not so. We were taking a look around the website of AF Decom, Scandinavia’s largest demolition contractor this morning when we came to this page. Rather than clicking on the Union Jack symbol within the website, we chose the Google Translate option at the top of the page and were surprised by the somewhat forthright translation of the final sentence.

For those Over 18 with nothing better to do on a Monday morning, we recommend that you give it a try.

Dust from demolition of hundreds of Kansas City homes “poses health risk”

Kansas City’s demolition practices are being called into question now that the city has started two projects that will tear down over several years more than 1,000 pre-1978 homes, mainly on the East Side.

According to state regulations, demolition dust must be kept to a minimum and should not be visible beyond property boundaries.

But news photos and videos in recent months captured two home demolitions that show clouds of dust blowing into neighborhoods.

In one case in January, in an area being cleared for the new East Patrol police station, an excavator with a huge claw ripped into a home and dust drifted over a few dozen onlookers, including city officials, residents and children.

In another demolition in September, part of the city’s effort to begin ridding neighborhoods of the blight of abandoned homes, Mayor Sly James operated the equipment. Dust swelled, choking the mayor and onlookers.

Read more here.

Bridge lit up by Sunday morning implosion.

With a deafening series of explosions, moving north to south in a half-second across the U.S. 281 bridge over Lake Marble Falls, most of the 950 feet of metal truss works collapsed into the river Sunday morning.

The blasts produced a mass of black smoke that quickly drifted to the north over downtown Marble Falls with the morning’s brisk winds.

The 8:07 a.m. concussions, louder and more forceful than even experienced Texas Department of Transportation officials on hand anticipated, also produced a sustained round of “wow,” “awesome,” fist pumps and excited chatter among the 3,000 to 4,000 people who public safety officials said gathered in various shoreline locations to watch.

Read more here, or view the spectacular video below:

Animal rights outcry as endangered elephants used as ‘bulldozers’ in India.

Animal rights groups are up in arms over the use of endangered elephants in place of bulldozers in India.

Indian officials are using the animals to demolish shacks built by illegal immigrants on forest land in Assam, north east India.

Dr R D Tanwar, chief conservator for forests, said: “The hilly terrain of the region makes it impossible for bulldozers or any large demolition vehicles to enter the region. And if we send in human demolition squads, people chase them away. We hire elephants from local mahouts to demolish the huts as they are the only sensible way in the hilly region.”

The region has hundreds of elephants that used to be used in the timber trade, which has now been banned.

Indianapolis Airport demolition bids come in way under budget.

As the UK economy braces for the news that the five-year roller coaster ride has taken another nosedive to take us into what pundits have labelled a “triple-dip” recession, we are constantly told how our cousins across the Atlantic ducked in and ducked out of recession and are now once again on the gold-lined path to economic stability and prosperity.

But, based upon the latest news emerging from Indianapolis, it appears that the memo heralding the return to days of wine and roses has not yet filtered down through the American demolition ranks.

According to local news reports, a budget of $11.3 million had been set aside by the Indianapolis Airport Authority for the demolition of Indianapolis International Airport.

But the total project cost – including a 17-percent contingency for unforeseen problems – will be just $5.7 million, according to an airport staff memo about bids received early this year.

The airport authority board will vote today on the recommended contracts. Airport staff recommend the low bidder, Veit USA for the main demolition contract. Veit USA bid about $4 million. That would cover all buildings and slabs, as well as basements under the former “C” and “D” concourses, according to an airport authority memo.

The airport received 13 bids ranging from $3.5 million to $9.7 million on the demolition contract. The initial lowest bid was thrown out because of the bidder’s math error.

Read more here.

Piecemeal demolition of San Francisco bridge will take years

While the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge will open to traffic in September, the work needed to take down the old roadway is expected to take years.

Brad McCrea, regulatory director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the state agency that oversees protection of the bay, said that building the new bridge will only be half the challenge. “Taking the old Bay Bridge down is as practically as big a project as putting the new one up,” he said.

Environmental restrictions mean the structure will have to be carefully taken apart in sections, in the reverse order that it was originally built.

“They have great documentation about how this old structure was built in the 1930s,” McCrea said. “So they will use the architectural drawings from the 30s, they’ll use all of the photographs they have from the 30s, and they’ll use that as a road map to un-doing what was done 75 years ago.”

Read more here or view the video below:

More than 400 post-war homes face demolition to address structural defects.

The BBC is reporting that residents of more than 400 post-war homes in South Gloucestershire have been told they are earmarked for demolition to make way for new housing.

Merlin Housing Society Ltd said it intends to start knocking down the social housing in spring 2014 “to address structural defects”.

Some residents said the homes were draughty, but others said they were settled and would refuse to move.

Merlin said everyone would be re-homed but this could be outside the area. Those affected will get at least £4,700 compensation.

The landlord has published notices of 424 homes it intends to demolish within the next seven years.

A further 1,000 of the properties – built quickly after World War II – will be refurbished.

Read more here.