40-year old chimney above psychiatric centre succumbs to blast.

It took only 11 seconds for the 220-foot-tall smokestack on the former Kings Park Psychiatric Center property to crumble to the ground on Wednesday. The smoke stack was more than 40 years old.

The implosion of the stack, which is next to the center’s old power plant, or Building 29, drew large crowds throughout the KPPC that is now known as Nissequogue River State Park. The center closed in 1996, and 10 years later Sen. John Flanagan (R-East Northport) secured $29 million in state funds to improve the park.

In early 2012, Gov. Andrew Cuomo budgeted $22.5 million for the park with $15 million set aside for a demolition project and last March, the state Parks Department awarded an Indiana-based company a contract to demolish 19 structures on the property.

Read more here, or view the video below:

Can readers shed any light on this catastrophic collapse.

Our good friend and World Highways editor Mike Woof has just sent us this deeply disturbing photograph from a demolition site in the heart of Brussels.

At first glance, aside from the general untidiness of the site, it looks like any workaday inner city demolition site. But a perimeter of police tape suggests that all is not well. And it’s only when you look more closely, you can see just why the police tape is there.

For there, buried under hundreds of tonnes of rubble, is a Caterpillar skid steer loader (circled).

“I also saw a Gehl mini excavator that had been crushed flat. I don’t know if anyone was killed but if there was someone in the cab of the Gehl, they wouldn’t have a chance as the ROPS was completely flattened,” Woof says. “[It was] harder to tell with the Cat skidsteer as it was flattened down to the level of the boom but it didn’t look like they’d tried to dig anyone out of the machine so I’m guessing there wasn’t. There was some police tape around the site so I presume the emergency services were there just after it happened. I don’t know when this incident occurred though or how long work has been stopped. I think it’s possible the collapse happened when no one was on site.”

Woof reports that the debris from the collapse had also damaged a neighbouring building. “Debris has hit the building next to it as well and one of its walls has been buckled with the impact.”

If anyone knows any more about this catastrophic collapse, please let us know.

UK contractor requires risk assessment of likely shark attack in centre of London.

A UK contractor working on the preparatory demolition ahead of the construction of the Amity Tower on the banks of London’s River Thames has been forced to call in the assistance of shark attack experts over fears that its work might release man-eating Tiger sharks into the river.

The anonymous contractor reports that the client raised concerns that vibration from the demolition works could result in the escape of the deadly Tiger sharks from the neighbouring London Aquarium.

“We were aware of the location of the aquarium and the various forms of marine life contained there. But the client took one look at our initial risk assessment – particularly the part relating to the provision of an emergency escape vessel – and insisted that we would ‘need a bigger boat’,” a spokesman says. “As a result, we had to buy a purpose-built boat called The Orca.”

Despite protestations from the contractor that a Tiger shark could not survive in the River Thames, the client also recommended a consultation with world-renowned shark attack experts Brody, Hooper & Quint. “It is true that Tiger sharks would not live for very long in freshwater. But sharks are deeply unpredictable. You just never know what they’re going to do next,” explains consultant Martin Brody. “I saw one eat a rocking chair once.”

The unnamed contractor reports that work is scheduled to commence at Amity Tower within the next few weeks with the demolition portion expected to be completed by 4 July.

ECY Haulmark hails potential revolution in hydraulic hammer business.

The replacement of hydraulic breaker steels may soon be a thing of the past thanks to pioneering research between Loughborough University and UK Furukawa Rock Drill importer ECY Haulmark. Using advanced nanotechnology, scientists have successfully demonstrated the ability to “regrow” steel that has been damaged or broken entirely.

“Nanotechnology effectively allows us to ‘pre-programme’ materials to make them ‘aware’ of their desired strength, weight and length,” explains Dr Alf Pirolo, one of the team behind the advances. “If those parameters are impacted in any way – through a steel breakage, for example – the steel is triggered to rebuild itself to its former strength and weight.”

According to ECY Haulmark’s Rick Yarwood, the technology has delivered some remarkable results although he readily admits some initial scepticism. “We were dubious when we were first approached and the initial trials did little to dispel our concerns. The scientists were originally unable to stop the steel growing when it reached the desired length,” he says. “They claimed that the operator would control the length by constant use but we quickly disproved that with a demolition customer who parked their hammer for three weeks. When we went back to it, the steel had grown out of the yard and was halfway across their car park, which obviously has health and safety implications. But since then, the research team have fine tuned the programming and that issue has been addressed.”

Yarwood says that the new nanotechnology steel is roughly six times the cost of a standard steel, but anticipates that demolition customers would achieve payback within two years. With that in mind, the team is now turning its attention to other demolition applications, starting with shear blades.

“Once again there have been a few teething problems,” Yarwood explains. “The first set of blades grew so big that we weren’t able to close the jaws. A few days later and the blades had effectively crossed over making the attachment look like a camel chewing a toffee. But the potential for this product is enormous, and we are delighted to be at the cutting edge of this exciting technology.”

Customers wishing to be among the first to try nanotechnology breaker steels should contact ECY Haulmark via the company’s website.

TxDOT reviewing plans for U.S. 281 bridge piers following three county phone outage.

A less-than-perfect bridge implosion has delayed the demolition of two piers in Lake Marble Falls that are all that remains of the old U.S. 281 bridge.

Initial plans from the Texas Department of Transportation were to use explosives to demolish the remaining piers sometime in the last week of March. After reviewing those plans, officials now say that demolition — with explosives — is tentatively scheduled for April 4. No time has been set.

“We still want there to be (day)light but with the least traffic implications as possible,” TxDOT spokesperson Kelli Reyna said.

Reyna said the plans for the pier demolition are being revised after the March 17 bridge implosion that cut telecommunication lines and punctured a sewer line.

Reyna said TxDOT does not have a blasting expert and must rely on a blaster’s safety record and work history.

“Still, there were issues that occurred that we were told would not,” Reyna said. “That’s why the plan is being revised, to make sure additional safety measures are covered.”

The piers will be demolished with explosives placed underwater. The blast should break the concrete piers into pieces that will be picked up with specialized buckets attached to cranes that will pick up the debris from the lake.

Read more here.

PenPly stack to be stripped before crews tumble it down

Workers are expected to begin unwrapping plastic sheathing from around the former Peninsula Plywood smokestack this week — perhaps today — as Port of Port Angeles officials and site demolition contractors make plans to topple the 175-foot structure April 8.

The tower is scheduled to disappear from the city’s skyline at 3:30 p.m. that Monday next month.

It will take about 2½ weeks to remove the protective plastic and dismantle scaffolding, port Director of Engineering Chris Hartman said.

The scaffolding and plastic were put into place so that workers could remove asbestos-laden paint as part of the port’s $1.6 million project to demolish 11 buildings on the 19-acre site at 439 Marine Drive.

Hartman said an environmental consultant with Seattle-based Argus Pacific Inc. was slated to conduct air-monitoring tests Monday before signing off on demolition by the end of the day.

Previous air-monitoring tests have passed “with flying colors,” he said earlier Monday.

Read more here.

Another video cameraman gets a little too close for comfort.

Having watched this video a few times, we have summised just how the risk assessment discussion went just prior to filing:
Video cameraman – So I’ll be safe here?
Excavator operator – Sure. Safe as crossing the road.
Video cameraman – Erm, crossing the road isn’t actually that safe. Are you sure?
Excavator operator – Dude, I am right beside you. Do you really think I would pull hundreds of tonnes of concrete towards myself?
Video cameraman – Well, when you put it like that…

DemolitionNews will not be bought or bribed!

It is Good Friday, a day when I should be spending time with my family and recovering from a week in which the latest edition of our new magazine hit the newsstands.

Instead, I am in front of a computer, shocked and appalled at having received an unsolicited bribe from a company that shall remain nameless (Northerntrack). The fact that anyone thinks my loyalties can bought for the price of a (very smart) Easter egg just shows how little they know me or understand my editorial integrity.

Andy and Sue Hair – the Brangelina of the demolition industry – sent me this so called “gift” with a note that says “Onwards and Upwards”. Of course, this could apply to the new magazine in which their company is featured. But post-Leveson, us hacks have to be on our guard.

Similarly, the sturdy outer shell of the Hotel Chocolat egg could be a confectionery representation of Northerntrack attachments’ renowned durability; the smoothness of its chocolate symbolic of the slick action of the company’s pulverisers, shears and grapples.

But I digress. The very fact that Andy Hair – Leeds’ answer to George Clooney – thinks that my affections can be bought with mere (although unquestionably delicious) chocolate is a personal insult. And Sue – women want to be her, men want to be with her – Hair is equally culpable in this thinly-veiled (and sweet smelling) attempt at bribery and corruption. And if they think this is going to get their excellent company and equally excellent attachments additional coverage in these pages, well they are sadly mistaken.

As soon as I finish this column, I shall be taking this unwanted (and now largely eaten) “gift” to a local old folks’ home to see what they make of its heavenly aroma and velvety texture. And I do not intend to mention Northerntrack or its range of high quality bespoke attachments in any way, shape or form.

That will teach them.

Happy Easter!!

Investigation spotlight falls upon T. Fiore Demolition.

A Newark demolition company that owes New Jersey and the federal government more than $100,000 — including unpaid fines stemming from the 2011 death of a teenage worker — was among the many subcontractors hired with taxpayer dollars to haul debris after superstorm Sandy.

The federal government is seeking $30,000 from T. Fiore Demolition, saying the company could have prevented the 2011 death of a 19-year-old worker at its Wilson Avenue facility if it had followed federal guidelines. T. Fiore was cited with 11 safety violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, public records show.

This year, the state Department of Environmental Protection stopped issuing the company the decals that allow it to haul debris in New Jersey, according to state records, citing more than $86,000 in unpaid fees that piled up in the past year.

And court documents show the state and owner Theodore Fiore also have been tied up in litigation for several years stemming from a separate dispute over the construction material recycling business the company has been operating for the past decade at the Wilson Avenue site, which is near the New Jersey Turnpike.

Read more here.

Sheffield Jessop Hospital’s Edwardian wing demolition approved

The BBC is reporting that the Edwardian wing of a former hospital in Sheffield is to be knocked down to make way for a new £81m university engineering department.

Campaigners had been trying to save the Grade II-listed extension to the former Jessop Hospital.

They said it was an “absolute disgrace” the communities secretary had decided not to call in the planning application for further review.

The University of Sheffield said it now hoped to open the building by 2016.

The Victorian Society and the Hallamshire Historic Buildings Society (HHBS) were among groups arguing that the wing should be saved.

Read more here.