300 frames per second power plant implosion

A few days ago the smokestacks and neighbouring building at the disused Progress Energy power plant on Weedon Island were imploded. There's some great footage of the implosion taking place on YouTube, but the video above is especially nice. It was shot at 300 frames per second, and then played back at the more typical 24 frames per second. The end result is a super slow-motion implosion that shows off every stage of the stacks falling.

Here's another video of the stacks and building falling at normal speed to show you the difference:

Power plant implosion ends in building still standing

There were a few red faces in Portland last week when what was meant to be the state's largest ever implosion didn't work out as planned.

As you can hear in the video, the countdown wasn't done correctly and the implosion seemed to happen too early. Once the dust had settled the pile of rubble you'd usually expect to see wasn't there. It looks as though not enough explosives were used, or the charges were placed poorly as the building remained standing.

The building is actually a Central Heat Plant including two 230-foot smoke stacks. The stacks came down, but the main structure only fell 18-feet and was left swaying in the wind.

Who's fault was this? Engineered Products Co. was hired for the job, but the operations manager, Jennifer Gregor, is blaming Precision Explosives of New York who were hired to carry out the explosives work. An investigation is sure to follow and Gregor has stated a plan for taking the building down completely will be ready by next week.

Source: The Wrecking Ball