OK, I’m confused. Do we want the Berlin Wall or not?

For some 28 years, the Berlin Wall stood as a stark monument to the political and economic divisions that divided Europe at the end of World War II; a concrete embodiment of the Iron Curtain. On the western side of the wall – eventually – lay prosperity and an embracing of the new; in the East, communism and the ways of yesterday held strong.

On 9 November 1989, all that changed as the East German government relaxed its travel restrictions and allowed its citizens to visit West Berlin and West Germany. Within days, that trickle turned to a flood and the Berlin Wall was swept away as thousands of citizens on both sides chipped away at the edifice to secure souvenirs of the Wall’s divisive past.

So it seems very strange that, some 13 years since the Wall supposedly fell, there are now protests against the demolition of a portion of the remaining wall:

Crews begin work on house where sinkhole swallowed man.

Crews have started to demolish the house in Tampa, Florida, that partially collapsed into a sinkhole on Thursday, swallowing resident Jeffrey Bush as he slept in his bed.

Spokesman Mike Merrill told reporters they would be proceeding slowly to allow survivors to retrieve valuables. Experts will examine the hole once the house has been removed.

Bush is presumed dead

Rescue teams in Florida call off efforts to find body; considered too dangerous to continue.

A house where a man was swallowed up by a sinkhole that opened up under his bedroom is due to be demolished.

It comes after rescue teams called off their efforts to find Jeff Bush’s body as they considered it too dangerous to continue.

They feared the “seriously unstable” house could collapse on them if they tried to search for him.

“Our data has come back, and there is absolutely no way we can do any kind of recovery without endangering lives of workers,” said Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico.

Before the search was abandoned, engineers found the soil in the slowly growing sinkhole around the home was very soft and believed the entire property could eventually be swallowed up.

“At this point it’s really not possible to recover the body,” Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said, adding “we’re dealing with a very unusual sinkhole”.

Read more here.

48 hours that marks the highs and lows of leadership.

It is not inconceivable to think that the figureheads of both the UK’s demolition trade associations have awoken today with a headache.

Newly-elected William Sinclair could be forgiven for sporting that morning-after-the-night-before feeling having emulated his father to claim the top spot at the National Federation of Demolition Contractors. Steve Jack, Sinclair’s opposite number at the Institute of Demolition Engineers, may also be suffering following the sudden, unexpected and seemingly acrimonious departure of IDE national secretary Valerie Stroud on Thursday.

But while Sinclair’s ills can be cured by a hair of the dog, some strategically-applied paracetamol and some bracing Dundee air, Jack’s headache may be somewhat more difficult to shift.

The presidency of a trade association is not, typically, a full-time engagement. While Sinclair is preparing for his company’s next major demolition contract and Jack is easing his employer – Magnox – through decommissioning and demolition of a number of nuclear power stations, the day-to-day reins of their respective office are held by another. At the NFDC, that other is CEO Howard Button. At the IDE, that other WAS Valerie Stroud.

Although most members knew her as the welcoming face behind the reception desk of the IDE’s increasingly successful seminars, Stroud was in fact the administrative and constitutional hub of the Institute. And although her lady-is-not-for-turning style may have contributed to her formidable reputation, few would question that she lived and breathed the IDE. She was an important right-hand woman to a series of IDE presidents, and was an invaluable catalyst when the late David Ross Turner was taken ill during his presidency and his place was taken by Terry Quarmby. Until relatively recently, the IDE’s official address was Stroud’s front room.

Like any formidable female, though, Stroud was not without her detractors. She regularly walked a fine line between traditionalist and set in her ways; and her vice-like grip of the IDE’s website and its magazine were both a fault and a virtue.

Regardless, her sudden and unexpected departure leaves a sizeable void, one that will be difficult to fill. But fill it they must; and that task falls to president Steve Jack and his council of management who gathered at a hastily arranged extraordinary general meeting in London yesterday afternoon.

Of course, no-one is irreplaceable and in the weeks or months to come, Stroud’s role will be filled. Fulfilling her role will be one thing; filling her shoes may be quite another.

Sheffield sounds death knell for stadium that produced a champion.

The stadium where Olympic hero Jessica Ennis was discovered and trains will be closed and demolished as a cost-cutting measure, councillors have decided.

The £29 million Don Valley Stadium, in Sheffield, is being sacrificed as part of Sheffield City Council’s bid to save millions of pounds.

The Labour-run authority says it must find £50 million of savings next year after the Government announced sweeping public spending cuts.

It says the £700,000 it spent subsidising the facility in 2012/13 is unsustainable as the stadium is running at a loss.

Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Ennis trains at the stadium. She was also discovered at the stadium when she went to a summer holidays athletics club when she was 10.

Read more here.

Rival seizes opportunity to expand network with experienced personnel.

Things are hotting up in the UK emergency replacement hydraulic hose business with the news that Rochester-based Hydraquip has acquired the leases on 16 new mobile workshops previously destined for the newly-collapsed BMI Hose. At the same time, the company has taken on 14 former members of BMI’s staff as it seeks to draw closer to the heels of UK market leader Pirtek.

“On Thursday 21 February, my staff were inundated with calls from BMI staff and engineers who were facing a very uncertain future following the unexpected collapse and closure of the company. On the Friday, we made a decision that – subject to being able to acquire the 16 brand new mobile workshops that BMI had just leased from Ogilvie – we would look to save as many jobs as possible and expand our own metwork,,” explains Hydraquip founder Duncan MacBain. “We took very decisive and positive action because we knew the experience most of the BMI staff had. We employed three staff on the Friday, flew up to Humberside and employed five staff from the Scunthorpe and Wakefield branches on the Sunday. On the Monday, I flew to Gloucester and Cardiff and employed another three. To date, I have managed to employ a total of 14 former BMI staff; a very good set of people with skills and knowledge in our industry.”

Of course, MacBain and his team have not taken former BMI personnel and vehicles under their wing for purely altruistic reasons. The acquisition of the vans will shortly take the Hydraquip fleet to 65 across the UK, putting it in second place behind established UK market leader Pirtek which boasts 400.

However, MacBain’s decision to pay the former BMI staff a month in advance to offset their alleged non-payment by their now defunct former employer is certainly to be applauded.

This latest round of acquisitions and expansion mark a continuation of a remarkable period of growth for Hydraquip which was only founded in 1989. “By the year 2000 we had two vans and eight staff operating from a single location. But following a series of acquisitions of local independent emergency hose replacement companies, we now have 130 staff at 10 locations,” Duncan Macbain concludes. “At the same time, have grown from less than £1 million turnover in 2000 to around £12 million in 2012 with around £15 million forecast for 2013.”

Demolition of Nitro-St. Albans Bridge gathers big crowd

Crowds gathered today for a historic moment — the destruction of the St. Albans side of the Nitro-St. Albans Bridge.

The St. Albans portion of the bridge was brought down with explosives at 10 a.m. today.

A post-detonation inspection was to ensure all the explosives were detonated. Officers reopened roads minutes after the blast.

Read more here or view the video below:

Photographer risks life and equipment to capture bridge blast.

When it comes to filming implosions, there’s close and then there’s too close.

The following footage of the blast to fell the Morgan Street bridge certainly errs towards the latter and apparently cost the photographer his camera.

We can’t help thinking he’s lucky that’s all he lost:

Just what you always wanted; a coat hanger made from rebar.

You know how it is. You’ve been to the store and bought a manly shirt to go with a butch suit and a particularly fetching tie that is literally oozing with machismo. On the surface, your wardrobe simply couldn’t be more manly if it grew a pair.

But wait. The testosterone-fuelled manliness of your wardrobe ensemble is being let down by a namby-pamby, limp-wristed and flimsy hanger.

What you need is the (unfortunately named) Man Hanger, a hanger constructed from industrial strength steel reinforcing bar that comes in at a suitably spendy $25 a pop.

While there is little question that the Man Hanger will last a lifetime, I fear that the makers have overlooked one important aspect of the flimsy alternative’s popularity.

Unless you are the Incredible Hulk, just how are you going to bend this baby into a replacement car radio aerial?

Time-lapse footage captures painstaking dismantling process.

Towards the end of last year, I visited a Coleman and Company site in St Helens to cover the company’s dismantling of a huge 85-metre tall MAN gasholder. As if that isn’t tricky enough, this contract was hampered from all angles by – among other things – nesting peregrine falcons, a site fire, high winds, and a neighbouring structure just five metres away.

However, Coleman and Company rose to the challenge and, as this video illustrates, got the job done:

Dismantle of M.A.N Gasholder from Coleman & Company on Vimeo.