Demolition

July 8, 2003 was the big day. The silo was to come down. Cars slowed or stopped to watch when they realized what we were doing. The city said that both it and the corner building would have to be demolished and removed because they did not meet the city code. Shucks. We had a lot of ideas for the silo: Put a round roof on top and remodel it into a giant clubhouse or lighthouse, put in a staircase to access several levels inside, paint it to look like a giant peppermint stick during the Christmas season, or convert it into a giant dive tank for scuba practice. It was a local landmark and ever since tearing it down I've felt like I need to replace it with something significant, like a giant flagpole, or some other recognizable landmark. Next summer it will sport some type of flower bed, grass, and some new trees.

We started by tying a chain around a central support ring, then connecting that to a giant rope that was supposed to handle about 900 lbs. I had to tug it with the Subaru first, which I thought might be able to pull it over, but of course had to opt for Dad's old backhoe he had just purchased, which resembles a giant, yellow, steel, sand crab. After a few big tugs that only cracked the cement, Dad got brave, drove up next to it and started knocking out pieces of concrete from the west side of the base using the hoe extended from the north side. He was smart and stretched out to its full extent, knocking out few pieces at a time, and at an angle such that the silo would fall to the west- thus preserving his life. I prayed a lot that day and in the days previous. Ken Hardy, a local contractor and demolitions expert had told me a horror story of a guy who dropped a silo right on top of his front-end loader. He had lived because it had a steel reinforced cab.

We tried pulling the silo over about two times before we actually were able to make it drop. You'll not that we had to take out more than a third of the bottom before it would fall. What appeared to be an old, brittle, crumbling silo was actually very well built and supported. It fell in spiraling fashion and almost straight down on itself, not like a tree. My brother had the video camera almost ready, but we had pulled so many times before that we forgot to make sure that he had the camera ready.

We filled about two 30-cubic yard dumpsters with the debris over the next few weeks. Since then we have loaded out a total of 7 dumpsters full of concrete or debris and about 13 dump-truck loads as well. The trucks averaged about 12-13 tons each, and the largest dumpster load was 16 tons (10 tons is what it is supposed to hold). It is true that one man's garbage is another man's treasure because I spent a fortune in getting all of this junk hauled off. Thankfully, the 6-7 flatbed loads of recyclable steel and aluminum that I hauled to Bloom's Recycling in Ogden paid me between $20-$60 each time. I estimate that we hauled out over 200 tons in debris. I have about 2-3 more smaller loads that I will haul out with the flatbed dumper. Then it's on to bringing in topsoil, putting in a sprinkling system, more trees, flowers, and grass! Hurray!