Ground Zero
Camden Fire Department
Manages Building Implosion
article and photos by Joseph Louderback
| Joseph Louderback has been a volunteer firefighter for the Milmont Fire Company in Milmont Park, PA, for the last 18 years. A former Government Affairs reporter, Louderback spent a year as editor of the FDNY Publications Unit, and has written for several fire service publications. He is a frequent contributor to 9-1-1 Magazine. |
Photographs: All photos by photos by Joseph Louderback |
 The RCA Building on the waterfront in Camden (NJ) crumbled gracefully during a carefully planned implosion intended to level the structure. Camden Fire Department worked closely with demolition experts to insure safety. |
 Camden Fire Marshal Herb Leary and Assistant Fire Chief Steve Bird check out the structure two days before the blast. Exterior and interior walls are removed from lower floors and explosives placed in the support columns. The columns are blown apart during the blast and the building should cave in upon itself. |
 Anna Chong, of Engineered Demolition, goes over countdown procedures with Camden's Fire Marshall and members of the police bomb squad prior to the blast. |
 Police kept crowds, eager to see the implosion first hand, orderly at a specified viewing site. |
 Fire Marshal Herb Leary confers with Camden Mayor Milton Milan prior to the blast. |
 After the building collapsed, a huge dust cloud sprayed out in all directions, covering adjacent buildings and streets with dust. Fire crews hosed down the streets afterwards. |
 Camden Fire crews stood by during all phases of the demolition. |
 Assistant Chief Steve Bird at ground zero, with a piece of blown column as a souvenir. |
This article can be found on
page 20 of the May/June 1998
issue of 9-1-1 Magazine.
Chief Fire Marshal Herb Leary gathered his captains around in a circle and laid it on the line. "It's all about communication. We've all got to work together," he said. The young leaders looked at the 33-year veteran of the Camden Fire Department with a nervous stare. Everybody was on edge on Sunday morning, June 15, 1997 as thousands of sightseers converged on one of New Jersey's toughest cities.
Known for its heavy fire activity, high crime and dubious distinction as one of the most depressed urban centers in America, the eyes of the region were watching for a different reason on this day - people gathered for the implosion of the old RCA complex on the city's waterfront.
The city's fire and police departments would play a major role in pulling off this grand event and there was no room for mistakes. Camden's emergency personnel had two challenges: they drafted a plan for the implosion's safe resolution and also had to be prepared if something went wrong.
Weeks in planning
The 8 a.m. demise of RCA was weeks in the planning. Making sure the violent mixture of explosives and gravity came off without a hitch left planners with an anxiety-filled challenge. Imploding structures has become an early morning weekend ritual as cities across the country replace tired, outdated industrial areas with exciting tourist and business centers. The size of some buildings makes the traditional wrecker's ball obsolete. Skilled "blasters," recruited by demolition contractors, perform a surgical procedure that is supposed to drop buildings into a manageable pile of concrete and dust.
Just days before the complex fell to earth, Leary and Assistant Chief Fire Marshal Steve Bird visited the towering structure that had dominated the skyline for over 75 years. Rising in two separate sections of seven and eight stories high, the lofty building had seen better days. Built in 1919 and 1924, this Victor Corporation factory gave birth to the gramophone. Home to a 20-building complex tucked under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, RCA has been a Camden fixture throughout the 20th century. Over 10,000 workers toiled in a plant so large that it stretched for blocks and even required its own power generation station.
In its last few years of life, homeless people moved in and scavengers ravaged the buildings. Measuring 500-feet long and 150-feet wide, the dilapidated towers were more than an eyesore - they blunted the wave of Camden's riverside rebirth that includes the popular New Jersey State Aquarium and the new SONY Entertainment Center.
Just seven seconds
Imploding a building takes about seven seconds. To prepare for the main event, contractors remove interior and exterior walls on lower floors so the building rests just on its columns. Holes are drilled in selected columns, which are loaded with explosives. When detonated, the columns are blown apart and the building caves in upon itself. It's a simple reaction that could have serious implications if something goes wrong.
Under the direction of Chief Kenneth Penn, the Camden Fire Department served as the primary city agency handling for the project. Their duties included officially allowing the blast to occur, monitoring the event and being prepared to move into action if something went wrong.
There were many concerns. The building might fall the wrong way and cause damage to neighboring structures. If the charges did not go off, approaching that problem would be quite dangerous. The department's Fire Marshal's Office managed the safety portion of the event. "Our original duties were issuing the permits for the implosion and making sure the dynamite was delivered and stored safely," said Chief Fire Marshal Leary.
Weeks ahead of time, a demolition contractor began hollowing out the first two floors. Engineered Demolition, a Minneapolis, Minnesota contractor that specializes in implosions, began loading the three-foot thick columns with dynamite. The job was tougher than others because the adjoining seven-story building was supported by steel columns. That effort required special "charges" that would have to be strapped to the bare steel. When detonated, the blast would cut through the steel and gravity was expected to do the rest. The charges would have to be detonated in a special sequence to bring that building down in unison with the other.
NFPA Guidelines
Getting the explosives into the city was no simple task. Several days before the blast, a truck carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives from a northern New Jersey storage site was met at the Camden city line by fire department officials. The volatile shipment arrived in the area after 5 a.m.; fire officials dictated the early hour so less commuters would be on the area's normally busy highways. It was escorted to the site via a prescribed safety route that avoided densely populated areas. "We wanted the quickest, safest route to the site," said Leary. A 24-hour police guard was posted at two red containers set up near the river's edge.
National Fire Protection Association guidelines cover the safe storage of explosives. Special iron magazines serve as site holding pens. According to the amount of explosives stored, the magazine location is charted out within a prescribed yardage safety net of other structures. Guidelines also suggest earthen berms be constructed to muffle the impact should an ignition occur. A Fire Safety Permit was issued by the Fire Marshals Office to formally allow storage of the explosives.
The job of guarding the magazine fell to Camden police officers. Officer Robert Frett found his round-the-clock duty an interesting deviation from usual patrol duties. It was especially harrowing when he was alone at night. "You think about it once in a while. It doesn't really bother me, but they told me to get out of here quick if a thunderstorm crops up," he chuckled.
With over 50 squatters calling the building home, Camden K-9 teams to swept the facility to make sure everyone was out so the blaster could go to work. Active areas like the high-tech Martin Marietta research facility directly across the street, the heavily traveled Ben Franklin Bridge that links Camden with Philadelphia to the east, and a nearby prison were high-occupancy areas of concern. Neighborhood meetings were held so residents were prepared for the re-routing of traffic and bus lines. A week before the blast local streets were closed to discourage gawkers and to clear the area of parked and abandoned cars. Wooden boxes were placed over ornate street lights the city installed as part of the revitalization project.
The windows of some adjacent buildings were boarded up to prevent breakage. Across from RCA, the headquarters of Martin Marietta was wrapped from the ground floor to the third floor roof with a heavy plastic cover.
Fire department responsibility
Four days before the blast a test activation was done on several columns. Concrete was blown too far from the building so special thick coverings were placed over the openings around the building in hopes of containing the debris. "The theory is that the covering will keep the flying concrete to a minimum as the building falls," said Assistant Chief Bird.
The contractor requested that the fire department respond to soak the lower floors of the structure with water in hopes of cutting down the dust cloud that always erupts upon implosion. "We do whatever we can to guard against problems," says Anna Chong, who runs Engineered Demolition with her husband Eric Kelly, a certified blaster.
Chong serves as a liaison with public agencies in setting up a safety perimeter and making sure things go off without a hitch. She has also become famous in media circles because she is the voice heard counting down the final 10 seconds before the explosion erupts. Together she and her husband travel the world blowing up buildings. Their victories include high-rise housing projects in Newark and most recently, the massive Sears complex in Philadelphia. While husband Eric handles the technical side of the operation, Chong has her own way of making sure a project goes right. On D-Day (blast morning), she rubs Holy Water on the dynamite-laden columns.
Ten, nine, eight .....
On Sunday morning, firefighters assigned to specially detailed units converge on the river front. Three engines and a ladder company take up positions in different sections of the waterfront, ready to respond if needed. Members of the Camden County Bomb Squad report to the command center at Delaware and Federal Street where Rescue 1, the fire department's heavy rescue unit, sets up as the communications link.
Chief Leary orders the crews to switch their radios to the city's secondary frequency for uninterrupted communication. Directly behind the command center, thousands of visitors fill the four-story parking garage adjacent to the New Jersey Aquarium.
Although a three-block area in each direction was blocked off by police since midnight, many thrill-seekers press for a better view. Tempers flare as some of the people stopped at roadblocks produce specially printed passes designating them as "VIP's" for the explosion. Motorcycle officers move in to support the traffic detail.
Bathed in the early morning shade, the crew of Engineered Demolition checks the dozens of electrical connections strung from the building to a trailer at the far corner of the lot. Covered with a black tarp and just 75 yards from the building, it's here that blaster Eric Kelly will seek cover before flipping switches on several battery-sized boxes. The current will race inside the structure in seconds and ignite the explosives.
On the Delaware River the fire department's marine unit idles off the bulkhead along with the U.S. Coast Guard. Their job is to keep gawkers out of the sea lane near the implosion due to concerns over an underwater disturbance. Almost on cue, a large cruise ship steaming up the Delaware passes just before 7 a.m. The captain had been advised that if he was late, he would have to kill his engines and wait out the blast south of the port.
At 7:30 a.m. Anna Chong walks the two blocks from the blast site and tells Fire Marshal Leary that she needs the engine companies to signal the blast countdown with their air horns. Clad in a company t-shirt that declares: "Have a Dynamite Day!", Chong dictates the order of the alert tones. "At ten minutes before ignition, we'll need them to sound a warning siren. Five minutes prior to the 8 a.m. blast, they will sound their horns again - the final horns will be pressed with one minute remaining," she tells Leary. Watches are synchronized.
Leary gathers his commanders around the rescue unit to relay the importance of their job. Their actions will advise the blaster, police and the public both on the New Jersey and Philadelphia side of the river that the moment is near. Leary is tense. He says: "Tell your drivers that we need the air horns all sounded at the same time. It's very important that everybody does it at the same time. Everybody check your watches."
Chong is relying on the horns because she will be on a boat in the river where a lucky contest winner has been chosen to press a "ceremonial plunger," the old time symbol of setting off explosive charges. Media cameras are on the boat as well as on the roof of the parking garage and circling in a helicopter north of the site. On the Ben Franklin Bridge, Port Authority police keep a sharp eye out for unwanted sightseers.
One Camden engine company sits across the street from the command center while another is positioned two blocks east of the blast site so its horns can reach areas in the central part of the city and north of the zone. When Chong hears the third sounding of horns, she will eye her watch and begin calling down the last seconds in front of television cameras.
With only minutes to go, police rush towards utility company workers who have charged through a parking lot for a better view. They move behind the barricades as firefighters stand single file, eyeing the darkened structure barely a quarter-mile away. At 10 minutes the eerie horns sound in stereo throughout the waterfront. The strained vibration bounces off buildings and causes a surreal, uneasy lead in to the main event. Anticipation increases as children jam fingers their ears - no one knows what to expect or how loud the implosion will be. A helicopter drones above as the five minute tone sounds.
The final sirens sound and Chong's voice rises over the waterfront. "Ten, nine, eight .... five, four, three, two, one ...!" Leary and his men stand transfixed as they await the eruption. The countdown ends with barely two seconds of silence before BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG ...a powerful thunder clap smacks out of the distant building. Dust blows from the windows as the east end begins to fall inward. Suddenly, the middle section collapses too as the riverside section with its steel supports melting tilts forward, then falls inward. The vibration races across the earth and rumbles through the viewers legs and jostles their stomachs. The impact is so powerful that it feels as if someone is punching you in the chest. The sound resembles the final dose of fireworks on Fourth of July night.
Disappearing into the dust, the building is dead, but a five-block wide cloud of dirt is moving toward the command center. It wasn't supposed to come this way. Slowly, it creeps after the throngs of people as many try to run for cover. Luckily, just as it reaches the populated viewing area, the cloud shifts and crosses the river to the southwest.
When the cloud disappears, blaster Kelly moves in quickly to make sure the building has dropped efficiently. He makes sure there are no safety concerns before sounding an "all clear" that is then transmitted over the public safety frequencies to police and fire units.
While police begin managing the heavy traffic of exiting visitors, firefighters move closer to the scene. The streets leading into the site are covered with dust. Every tree, every lamppost, the sidewalks and surrounding buildings give the impression that it has snowed in June.
Moving in closer, a massive pile of bricks and mortal rises four stories high. The huge eyesore is no more. Now the cleanup begins. Firefighters standby at fire hydrants. An agreement with the demolition firm has them washing down the streets in effort to return the site to normal as quickly as possible. News crews roll in to record the final cuts of film for the dinnertime broadcast.
Chief Fire Marshal Leary, Camden Mayor Milton Milan and blaster Eric Kelly meet across from the site to confirm that things went properly. It is the new mayor's first look at his agencies working together and he is impressed. The charges decimated the steel columns and there was no obvious damage to nearby buildings.
On the north side of the site, Camden Fire Marshal Steve Bird pulls past a roadblock and wanders to the edge of ground zero. He picks up a fist-sized piece of a column that was blown a block away. "I'll keep this as a souvenir," he says smiling.
