On October the 12, 2019, a portion of the Hard Rock Hotel being built at the corner of Canal and North Rampart in New Orleans, Louisiana, collapsed causing damage to and removing support from the two (2) tower cranes serving the construction. Given the height and potential fall radius of those cranes, the City of New Orleans established a 16 square block Exclusion Zone around the Hard Rock site. Following inspection by the crane manufacturer Liebherr, and crane owner, Morrow Crane, they determined that the damaged cranes had structurally failed and could not safely be dismantled. Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, USA was called to the site on October 14th by Lemoine Disaster Recovery and DH Griffin to work with team member Thornton Tomasetti to develop an explosives plan to lower/stabilize the tower cranes to permit follow-on operations to move forward with greater safety.
CDI’s plan called for the counterweight of the Alpha Crane, closest to Canal Street, to be released with explosives to swing inward to fall within the Hard Rock footprint. The boom would be released and dropped to hook over the edge of the roof of the hotel to prevent the rotation of the counterweight from pulling the upper mast backward toward the newly renovated Saenger Theater across North Rampart Street. The Alpha crane mast was severed at mid-height and felled, per plan into the previously damaged Hard Rock upper structural steel construction for cautious subsequent removal using conventional demolition operations.
The Charlie Crane, to the north, was already inclined 8° to the northwest as a result of the original collapse and could not safely be drawn back into the building’s footprint. The counterweight was explosively felled to swing it inward, to impact within the Hard Rock footprint, before the mast and boom were felled to the northwest onto protective matting placed by DH Griffin over utilities in North Rampart Street.
Both cranes behaved, as expected during the explosives sequence. While the risk from the damaged cranes was reduced, per plan, reducing exposure to workers and the public as decisions are made on how to proceed with the Hard Rock Hotel structure, care will need to be taken by all parties/stakeholders given that site conditions remain dangerous.
0 Comments