CWU Dorm Demolition Hits a Snag
It was a chaotic scene around Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA campus this weekend when a scheduled demolition didn't go as planned.
A portion of a former dormitory didn't collapse the way it was suppose to and knocked out power to a large section of campus.
Crowds cheered as the first wing of the Courson Building fell down, but it quickly became obvious something didn't go as planned.
The project manager Bill Vertrees said before the demolition that something like this could happen.
"All buildings that you commonly look at are built from the ground up, this one is built from the beam down. It's a suspended building and how it acts and how it's going to act during demolition is a challenge to predict," said Vertrees.
Contractors thought the building would collapse inward and down, but instead it fell outward towards a building next door, blowing out its windows and hitting a transformer, which knocked out power on most of the campus.
Afterwards, Vertrees explained what went wrong. Blueprints showed floor cables extending from the center of the building to the ends of each wing, which should have pulled the building inward, but those cables weren't actually there so it fell towards the other building.
Stephanie Stein lives just across the street from the Courson Building and she says she wasn't expecting the building to fall as close as it did. She's worried because another building near her house, the Muzall Building, is being torn down next Saturday. The Muzall Building is the identical twin of the Courson Building
"It made me a little nervous because I realized the other building is even closer to our house and when it comes down it could actually come down here," said Stein.
Some kids saw things a little differently as they watched out of an upstairs window.
"We thought it was so cool we started screaming like awesome," said Sara Dehollander.
Crowds gathered again as they began demolition of the second wing, wondering what would happen this time.
After a few adjustments to their plans the second wing of the building came down exactly as planned.
|
Linear Mode
