While Grading & Excavation Contractor does cover topics such as construction demolition and site clearing, it doesn’t really reach into the realm of explosives demolition. But I am going to blog about it today because there’s some pretty impressive video that was posted online by the company Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) out of Phoenix, MD.
CDI was hired to bring down Martin Tower, which was once the headquarters of Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, PA. This is a building described as being a 21-story, 332-foot tall, 567,000-square-foot structural steel office tower.
Now you already probably know a little about this kind of demolition. Explosives are placed in precise locations in the abandoned structure and then they are detonated in a specific sequence. The goal is to bring down the building onto a pre-planned footprint.
In just a matter of seconds the tower was reduced to a 16,000-ton pile of rubble.
I’ve watched a number of videos of the implosion and, in my opinion, none are better than the one that CDI itself has posted.
Take a few minutes to watch this ballet of explosives being set off and the graceful fall of a piece of American history.
