Writer and filmmaker documents gradual demolition of Passaic Bridge.

Despite the heady circles in which we move, it is unusual that we receive an email from a writer/filmmaker to tell us about a new project. But then, Wheeler Antabanez’s obsession with the piece=-by-piece demolition of the Passaic Bridge is not particularly usual either.

He has sat in the freezing cold of the early morning, and drawn the ire of the contractors for straying too close to the blast zone. It begs the question: Why go through the trouble?

It’s because Antabanez is filming a movie and writing a book about the Passaic River. “Anytime something like this is going on, I’m definitely there,” he said.

The Caldwell resident has been exploring the river for years since purchasing a 70-horsepower speedboat. His adventures led him to write a special issue in Weird NJ called “Nightshade on the Passaic.” The film and the book will pick up where “Nightshade” left off.

But Antabanez left the boat in Kearny while filming and photographing the bridge demolition. He wanted to shoot from solid ground to get steady images.

His efforts—and his tendency to dress in dark clothes—aroused the suspicions of the demolition crew on the second-to-last blast day.

“I was all ready to take a shot and I had my camera set up, and they came in saying ‘You can’t be in the blast zone,'” Antabanez said.

But the workers let him leave his cameras in the blast zone, and they recorded what Antabanez thinks was the biggest explosion of the series. “It looks like a big shrouded ghost head coming up,” he said of the blast.

And he made peace with the demolition crew. In fact, the blastmaster asked Antabanez for copies of his videos.

Read more here, and view Antabanez’ compilation video below.

B&B Demolition goes hunky in TV advert.

Here at Demolition News Towers, we often tread a fine line between good humoured and accidentally sexist. And, on the one occasion that we overstepped the mark with a Playboy TV video featuring a bunch of scantily-clad (and unclad) girls going about their daily demolition business, readers were quick to tell us the error of our ways.

But, partly to redress the balance, partly in recognition of the number of women now making inroads into demolition, and partly because we actually found it quite funny, here’s a demolition company’s TV advert featuring three guys from the hunkier side of the demolition business. Quite what health and safety types will make of their lack of PPE and near-naked torsos is anyone’s guess. But, judging by the reaction of the ladyt in the ad, that’s probably a small price to pay.

Ladies, enjoy.

Almost a mile of concrete viaduct demolished in 24 hours, thanks to LaBounty shears.

What follows IS a LaBounty corporate video and, under normal circumstances, we would steer clear of publishing what might be construed as an advertisement.

But this mini-epic follows the demolition of Doyle Drive – almost one mile of heavily reinforced concrete viaduct on the approach to San Francisco’s famous Golden Gate Bridge – in just 24 hours by Ferma Corporation.

Not only is it a staggering engineering feat, watching it on a day when Demolition News Towers is snow-bound just makes us want to book a flight to warmer climes. Enjoy.

LaBounty_Doyle Drive Demolition from partheinc on Vimeo.

Before we condemn the HSE’s FFI scheme, we need to look at the bigger picture.

We have all seen the headlines before: Christmas trees banned for health and safety risk; school football condemned by HSE; Breathing: The Hazards – The HSE report. And we all know them to be Daily Mail-style scaremongering with no basis in truth whatsoever. Indeed, in a rare moment of levity, the Health and Safety Executive now publishes these stories itself and then dispels them as “elf and safety myths”.

So, with that in mind, are we misjudging at the news that the Health and Safety Executive recouped just under three quarters of a million pounds in the first two months of its Fee for Intervention scheme?

Like many others in the trade press, I was quick to point an accusing finger at the HSE over its targeting of construction and the fact that it was doing so when the industry was already down for the count.

But, in truth, that is missing two important points:

1. The construction industry is targeted by the HSE for a reason – in 2012 alone it managed to kill 49 of its number and injured many, many more.
2. The very fact that construction companies received so many contravention notices in the first two months of FFI’s existence merely underlines the fact that some construction and demolition companies are still putting the lives and well-being of its employees and the public at risk on a daily basis.

As the HSE’s programme director – Gordon MacDonald – said when the scheme came into force on 1 October 2012: “Firms who manage workplace risks properly will not pay. But it is right that those who break the law should pay their fair share of the costs to put things right – and not the public purse.”

That is a difficult standpoint to argue against. So too is the timing of the scheme’s introduction.

Many – myself included – cited the fact that construction and demolition was in the grip of the worst recession in living memory and that has only deepened since FFI came into being. Surely FFI was the financial equivalent of kicking a man when he’s down, and stealing his wallet in the process?

Possibly so. But when the vagaries of the UK and global economies have backed the industry into a financial corner, work is being won more than ever before on the basis of pure cost. And there remains an element within construction and demolition that will see additional risk and less safety measures as a small price to pay to win much needed work.

Yes, the construction and demolition industries are being targeted. And yes, that is going to cost some companies money. But before we accuse the HSE of thinly-veiled cash generation, we need to get our own house in order.

Explosives experts combine to fell 54 metre PET Polymers building.

Yesterday morning, when most Brits were still pawing over the latest newspaper reports of the horsemeat in burgers furore, the joint forces of InDex, SES and Libra Demolition were taking down a 54 metre concrete-encased steel column and beam structure that stood on the site of a 1974 disaster that will live long in the memory of those in and around the town of Flixborough.

On 1 June 1974, a chemical explosion ripped through what was then a Nypro UK plant with the 60 gigajoule force of 15 tonnes of TNT. The blast killed all 18 employees in the nearby control room. Nine other site workers were killed, and a delivery driver died of a heart attack in his cab. Observers have said that had the explosion occurred on a weekday it is likely that more than 500 plant employees would have been killed. Resulting fires raged in the area for over 10 days. It was Britain’s biggest peacetime explosion until the 2005 Buncefield fire.

Explosives veteran and IndEx main man Dick Green says the team used 45 kg of explosives to fell the building.

Town hall submits plans to demolish black box and Telegraph House

Plans have been submitted to demolish the bus station and ‘Black Box’ in the town centre.

The council has put together proposals to tear down the two buildings as well as Telegraph House.

The applications, submitted last week, are part of the wider £100m redevelopment of the town centre and comes following the completion of the new council offices.

According to the application the seven-storey Telegraph House, on Baillie Street, will be stripped and have asbestos removed before being demolished to ground level.

And the demolition of the 15-floored Black Box, which is used by existing council staff, would also include the removal of the enclosed footbridge linking the Municipal Offices to The Wheatsheaf Centre.

Once all three buildings have been demolished they must be left clear and tidy for redevelopment.

Read more here.

Ohio University will demolish historic building

Ohio University officials say they’re going ahead with the demolition of an historic campus building that student folklore suggests is haunted.

Preservationists had been trying to persuade the university to spare the 88-year-old Ridges Building 26, or old Beacon School. It was built as a tuberculosis ward to a historically significant state mental hospital that operated on the property for more than a century beginning in 1868.

The building is empty, and OU has said it is an “attractive nuisance,” frequently subject to trespassing and vandalism.

Read more here.

As the UK and US continue to freeze, here’s your chance to wrap up for free.

In conjunction with UK Caterpillar dealer Finning UK and Ireland and to celebrate the start of the Coldest Journey polar expedition, we are offering one lucky reader the chance to win a Caterpillar jacket to keep them warm in the cold weather.

For your chance to win, just answer the following question:

The expedition is utilising a Mobile Vehicle Landtrain comprising a pair of modified Caterpillar dozers. But which specific model are they?

Please email your entries to manthony@markanthonypublicity.co.uk. Competition closes on 28 February 2013. The winner will be selected at random from the correct answers. The winner will be announced in the next edition.

Further information on the coldest journey visit www.ourcoldestjourney.com

Video captures demolition of Haitian landmark destroyed by quake.

It was a project that divided public opinion. While some claimed that the demolition of the presidential palace was a symbolic step on the road to recovery for the island nation of Haiti, others claimed that the money would have been better spent helping the hundreds of thousands of islanders rendered homeless by the devastating quake that tore through the country on 12 January 2010.

Either way, the video of the project makes for interesting viewing.

Former boiler house latest to fall to blast.

The latest portion of the Inverkip Power Station in Argyll, Scotland to succumb to implosion fell yesterday afternoon as explosives experts dropped the boiler house.

Inverkip Power Station Demolition of Boiler House – 06 February 2013 from Kayakacrossthewater on Vimeo.