The Walls Are Coming Down!!

This morning the crew began demolishing the small classrooms on the Mary Queen side of the building.  A very skilled back hoe operator began taking down the rooms about 9:00 am.  It took about an hour and a half for one room to get to the stage you see in the last photo. (A prepared photographer would have had a video camera ready but it is boxed up in a classroom waiting to be unpacked.)


Photos of each stage of the demolition are below. I have also taken some sequential photographs and published them to a video.  It was the only way to get the effect of the demolition through the use of individual photos.  The video is at the end of the post.

Notice that the windows and frames have been removed. 

The back hoe is ready for work.   

This took about three minutes to tear down. 

The removal of one beam caused the roof to cave in. 

As items are torn down, the operator moves them around and sorts them.  The bucket of the back hoe is like an extension of his arm. 

The hallway wall to this classroom is now gone.  Notice the golden dust pan hanging outside of a former first grade room.

After an hour and a half, this is how much work had been completed. 

If you look carefully you will see that there are actually three different piles of debris.  In the center are metal pieces, to the far left are soft items like drywall, insulation, and roofing.  The pile further back in between the other two is made up of bricks.  The operator knocks down a large section of the room and then uses the bucket to sort it into these piiles.  Some pieces are salvaged and the others are hauled away.