15 minutes to evacuate before collapse drops debris on neighbouring houses.

A Southeast Washington neighbourhood was jolted Thursday when a building collapsed and it was all caught on tape.

As the demolition crew worked on what was left of the SE high rise, evacuated residents like Pete Lyes and Renee Carter, who share a place at Southern Homes and Gardens apartment complex, stood in a parking lot and fumed.

“They just woke us up and said, ‘Evacuate!'” said resident Rene Carter. “My father is 80 years old and they gave us 15 minutes to evacuate…if it had been in Georgetown, they would have put me up in a hotel or somewhere else,” Carter said.

Efforts to bring down the city-owned building had been going on for a week, a process accompanied by a lot of dust and debris.

Further details can be found here or, alternatively, you can watch the (slow loading) video below.

Demolition started in 1994 at Est German nuclear plant remains ongoing.

Lubmin is a small, little-known Baltic resort in northeastern Germany. Scarcely one kilometer, or half a mile, removed from the town’s eastern boundary, several hulking and dilapidated cement bunkers stand flanked by rusty scrap metal. They are the remains of what was the largest nuclear power plant of the German Democratic Republic. Inside, as many as five Soviet-engineered pressurized water reactors once fed electricity into the grid.

Shortly after the 1990 fall of the Berlin Wall, the reactors were shut down. They were deemed unsafe based on Western standards.

Now, 15 years later, a demolition process which began in 1994 is still underway. It is a painstaking job, because although all the nuclear fuel rods have been removed, individual parts of the nuclear plant are still radioactive and need to be laboriously dismantled and stored.

Read the full and fascinating story here.

Workers removing Champlain Bridge debris from beneath water and ice.

As the photos here prove, Europe is currently in the midst of a cold snap that has brought snow, ice and transport misery to millions.

But if you think it’s cold where you are, spare a though for the demolition workers charged with removing the debris from the recent Crown Point bridge that currently lies in the icy and ice-covered depths of Lake Champlain.

In fact, according to a new report in the Burlington Free Press, the contractor is using a pair of excavators to handle the debris removal with one of the two dedicated to ice breaking duties.

Click here for further details.

Demolition set to start at Massachusetts Uniroyal plant.

One of the oldest factories in Chicopee will be reduced to rubble on Thursday morning. Mayor Michael Bissonnette and his economic development team are hoping the demolition of the old Uniroyal Tire plant will spur economic vitality in Chicopee Falls.

The Mayor will make the formal announcement at 10 a.m. The demolition and site clean-up will immediately follow.

According to Mayor Bissonnette, the old tire plant that dates back to the turn of the century is an eyesore and a health hazard. He says the 72 acre property has been a cancer to Chicopee Falls for almost two decades.

With this demolition, the mayor is hoping to make way for one of the biggest brownfields in western Massachusetts.

Read more here or watch the video below.

Texas to receive grant funding for flood plain demolition in Ike-damaged Galveston County.

Texas is getting nearly $103 million for buyouts of hundreds of homes on the flood plain in Hurricane Ike-damaged Galveston County.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday announced the funding to acquire and demolish 759 buildings in an effort to avoid future structure disasters. FEMA says the federal government will pay 75 percent of the total cost, estimated at almost $137 million. Administrator Tony Russell says it is the largest Hazard Mitigation Grant Program project funded by FEMA in Texas.

Read the full story here.

Surprise discovery beneath Indiana building halts factory demolition.

Work on the demolition and removal of debris at the former Richmond Gas Company building ground to a halt recently when workers found two brick tunnels and a well/cistern buried beneath the aged building.

All are filled with what workers think is water but to identify the fluid an environmental investigation is required. But that won’t happen for at least a week or two so the project has been shut down and the site sealed until testing for contaminants has been done.

Workers from Mike Delucio & Sons Construction recently demolished the building and were removing the debris when the discovery was made. Delucio & Sons is being paid $12,280 for the demolition project, though the cost is expected to increase slightly because of the additional work of filling in the tunnels and well.

Read more here.

UK contractor offers reward to help catch arsonists that destroyed high reach excavator.

The boss of a Bradford-based company has offered a “substantial” reward for help in convicting arsonists who burned out a £330,000 high reach demolition machine. At least £100,000 of damage was caused to the state-of-the-art high-reach machine when it was set alight in Heckmondwike.

The machine, which belonged to Thomas Crompton, had been used to demolish a mill at the Flush Mills site in Westgate and was parked in a secure unit at the side of the road. Company owner Thomas Crompton said he was waiting to hear whether the high-reach machine could be repaired or would be written off.

He said: “We are offering a substantial reward for information leading to the conviction of the person or persons responsible. We don’t want to let our customers down and we have got a replacement machine coming from Belgium so that none of our contracts are affected.”

Read the full story here.

Button-Linguard throws down the snowman challenge.

Earlier today, we asked readers to send us their photos showing demolition sites at work in or halted by the snow that has brought much of Europe to a standstill.

However, Button-Linguard managing director Roy Gibbons has just thrown down a new snow-related challenge.

With their site at a standstill, Roy and his team have spent their day creating two first class snowmen (pictured below). But, having appointed Demolition News as arbiters of all things cold and white, Roy has said that he will donate £50 to the Cancer Research charity if anyone can beat his team’s snow-sculpting skills.

UPDATE: We have just heard from “GoldenGirls” that they will match Roy Gibbons’ generous offer for a photo of the biggest snowman “to prove, once and for all, that size really does matter”.

So please send your photos via email to manthony@markanthonypublicity.co.uk or via text on (UK) 7973 465166 before judging takes place on Friday this week.

And just so you know what you have to beat, here are the two snowmen with which Button-Linguard has set the benchmark:

Fears over asbestos and lead paint unfounded.

Just before Christmas, Sedona.biz published a letter to the editor regarding an investigation by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) in response to a complaint they received about how the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) was handling the removal of hazardous material during the demolition of the old Oak Creek Bridge.

According to Rod Wigman, Public Information Officer for ADOT, ADOT and the contractor continue to work together to complete the construction of the SR 179 project. All pertinent regulatory submittals were filed for both demolition phases prior to the start of demolition.

ADOT coordinated all activities associated with both phases of the demolition with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), who administers state and federal (EPA) regulations, including National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP). The concern on the Oak Creek Bridge was due to lead paint in the [old] bridge railing. The bridge was tested for Asbestos in 2006 before construction with negative results. To comply with the law, ADOT filed a NESHAP notice with ADEQ for both phases of the bridge demolition.

Read the full story here.

Show us how your site or office is coping with the current cold snap.

With the UK and Europe under an increasingly deep blanket of snow, we’re calling on Demolition News readers to send us their photos to show us how their site has stopped because of the snow, or how work is progressing in spite of it.

You can email your photos to manthony@markanthonypublicity.co.uk or text them to (UK) 7973 465166.

Our first photo comes courtesy of SCG Supplies who are keeping themselves and their extensive stock of crusher spares warm and toasty with what is probably the UK’s most sought-after item of construction equipment.