PenPly Smokestack Still Standing
As of 5:39 p.m. today, the PenPly smokestack is still with us. Implosion didn't work because of a web of steel rebar inside the tower. They won't be using any more explosives today.
Next they'll try to topple the tower by cutting through the rebar with electric saws.
UPDATE: The tower has fallen; it went down at 6:15 p.m.
Next they'll try to topple the tower by cutting through the rebar with electric saws.
UPDATE: The tower has fallen; it went down at 6:15 p.m.
posted by Tom Harper at 5:44 PM
29 Comments:
If I'm the guy in the Texaco station across the street, I'm reviewing my insurance policy about now.
Leave it to the Korporate Kidd-bot, Mayor McKnucklehead, to botch imploding a smokestack!
OMG! I couldn't stop laughing. It was SO typical of Port Angeles. Could not have been more representative of this stupid town.
Like all the other follies we've talked about on this blog, such as HarborWorks, the city investment in PenPly, the CSO and so many others, it was a lot of build up, with disappointing results.
Port Angeles residents were led to believe the "experts", hired by the Port of Port Angeles, knew what they were doing. Like all these other projects, demolition by explosives has been done in other communities. Successfully. But the Port Angeles Curse extended to even a simple thing like blowing over a smokestack.
Sure, building "high end" car dealerships in a remote area with limited access was a questionable goal. But, smokestacks and structures FAR larger than the little stack in Port Angeles are brought down fairly routinely, these days. Real "experts" do these things successfully.
And, the crowds that showed up? Kids in strollers, and babies in arms! This was just a knock over, not a controlled implosion.
And, Cherie Kidd at the controls?
But, again. Just perfect. Typical Port Angeles.
I was standing outside to hear the booms of the explosions, heard nothing, but watched it topple on the internut this morning.
Oh - the hoopla! The crowds! The speeches! The excitement among thousands! The local media coverage including a continuous radio broadcast coverage of a monumental and historic event!
The marking of a new beginning for the town of Port Angeles!
No - not the demolition of the Elwha Dams and restoration of a wild river, but the botched toppling of a smokestack.
What a contrast in values and world views.
Sadly, this Pen Ply fiasco is all too typical of the mindset of Port Angeles public officials ---- as is the outcome.
The Port's contractors should have consulted Rayonier to learn how they managed to demolish their mill stack so quickly and efficiently. It seems like the Rayonier Mill buildings vanished almost overnight --- and without fanfare.
10:49 - Really? Think someone else should have handled it?
It's borderline horrifying to any one who lives here and pays attention. When I watch the one vid., from the bluff, I think to myself, maybe I should drop the price on my house a little more? (ha ha, like I really own a house)It's extremely embarrasing to think I could live here, in the city of PA, and think a PENNY of my tax dollars would go to good use. The guy narrating it, wow, he must have known it wouldn't topple, and and that his voice would be seen as a priceless archive of how progress is FETED (ha) in PA.
The video taken from the bluff was a hoot in a number of ways. Sobering, though: seeing all that black smoke spewing from the base of the stack and then learning that the built-up crud inside it must be tested for dioxins before the rubble can even be carted away. What genius neglected to foresee the risk to spectators from breathing such toxic dust?
Bhutan must have some awesome internet connections! Prolly wi-fi in every cafe and coffee shop!
The article said the rubble would be tested to see IF it contained anything hazardous. That sounds like the jury is still out.
Most, if not all, of the spectators were those cretinous, knuckledragging, mouthbreathing inbred imbeciles that populate this town.
So who cares if they've inhaled deadly toxins? They'll die off sooner and we can take over that much quicker1
@ 4:38 PM.....
I just got done making my cremation and disposal arraignments. Boy, I'm telling you, that end of life shit is a pain in the ass, they want to up sell you on everything.
But the gal with the great hooters that helped me this morning with some things I wasn't happy with because of her salesman pushing things at me was a real sweetie pie and now I get to leave this rock the way I want to.
The executor of my will, will pick up my remains from them, they'll put them in a Mason canning jar (he provides) per my wishes. And take them and dump them out in nature while they enjoy some drinks and talk about how different I was.
Death isn't my enemy, life is.
Fuck it all, lets have an other drink, or if you are into pot, another puff.
11:43 - LOL - You are a genius!!! A new local saying around here will be, instead of saying "the dude is wearing a tinfoil hat", you can say, "the dude thinks someone in Bhuthan posts negative comments about him on the internet".
4:38 Hope you aren't in food service. Get some help, please! We can tell you are a teabagger, because you have no humor, and are a moron. You are the type of guy, that puts boogars on the stall walls in public mens rooms. Just let it go.
I love you BBC!
Oh, please. Like Max is sitting in some coffee shop in Bhutan, the most remote country in the world, blogging about us!
I'm sure he's got an entire sweat shop now, for that purpose!
@ 12:02 AM_ You should work on your "trolldar" skills. This moron keeps trying to bait folks with their ongoing obsession with Max, and insulting anyone with environmental concerns.
If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you will see this pattern of turning any thread into something about Max. Or, really pathetically silly comments like seen with Anon 4:38.
Speaking of toxins, how many have added up the "Harbor Study" fees the city is collecting via the utility bills? I'm seeing the City collecting $35,000 a MONTH!
And, in reading the pamphlet put out by the Depart of Ecology, I see they say the Harbor is contaminated, and that there has been an "advisory" issued against eating shellfish, crabs and fish from the Harbor since 2008.
But, it is still okay for the commercial fish pens to operate in the harbor?!
Yummy.
You don't have to eat the fish grown in the harbor. There's plenty of fish in Lake Crescent to poach from the king.
Yer right, Billy, but what about the poor unsuspecting consumers who are being sold that stuff? I'm sure they are not labeled as "Raised in a Harbor with a multi-million dollar toxics clean-up operation underway".
Well, back in the good old days we fed those we killed to the pigs, then slaughtered the pigs and sold the meat to hungry people.
Come to think of it, it was all pretty efficient. We're all crazy ya know.
Billy, were you feeding people you killed to the pigs?
Kinda like "Silence of the Lambs", hunh?
The feeding folks to the pigs reference was referring to the old Deadwood days.
Hey, it's national grilled cheese sandwich day, but I think I'll have a hot turkey sandwich, with brown gravy on it.
Hey nice people here. Someone posted this on craigslist rants and raves today and I can't reply back there so I'm posting my reply here:
"I want to give a massive rave to 2 employees at Sunny Farm. I am 9 months pregnant and everywhere I go these days I'm bombared by insensative comments. Apparently being a small person with a big baby bump gives people license to make rude comments. Oh well, life goes on. I was in Sunny Farms last night and 2 of the employees there made my day! You guys made me smile and for that, I am so very grateful. You're kind words were a very much appreciated. Thank you!"
Sister, no shit! Thanks for posting about the nice people at SF. Wonderful place. I've found it's the same way at a couple of food stores here in PA, very nice people. Nice people are everywhere, just a bunch of jerks too!
I give Country Aire six months more - at the most!
"I give Country Aire six months more - at the most!"
I'll bite! You think this because of what, exactly?
The Port Angeles Curse extends to Country Aire.
I thought the owners were smart business people and reviving the old People's Store building was a great idea. But, they seem to have dug themselves a bottomless hole of debt. Sad to think we might have another big, empty building downtown again.
And the obvious price gouging, the clueless staff that come and go almost overnight (any of the old-timers still work there?),the rude, aggressive people that seem to run the place make shopping there a nightmare.
Talk about burning your bridges down!
It's worth it to me to shop at Sunny Farms where the staff is friendly and knowledgable, the store is coherantly laid out and I'm not walking all over creation and back.
The inside scoop is that CA is quietly up for sale. PCC, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's have been approached with a big sales pitch about a ready-to-go natural food store. Too bad CA isn't making any money and has mountains of unpaid and outstanding bills! So these companies all said no thanks and can you blame them?
Shows what happens when you burn your loyal customers down with your greed.
From the time I worked there, I could see the seeds of eventual destruction being sown. Robin was an absolute nightmare, and had zero business sense. She would do things like spend three months in Hawaii, then come back and "stay involved" by doing stupid, counterproductive things like rearranging the store - which only served to confuse customers who then had difficulty finding things. The billboard outside of town is another good example. I'm sure the big tractor is meant to convey "farm fresh goodness," but really, at a glance, all it looks like is an ad for a tractor, not food. Stupid!
Staffing was also ever-changing, with new people coming and going regularly, and the only stability seems to have been that they kept their most damaged and unpleasant employees. One of the women who worked there (no names, please) who looked like the offspring of Mickey Rooney fucking a monkey, was a total lunatic, and generated customer complaints all the time. Yet she had her hours expanded from part-time to full-time while I was there. The schedule shifted constantly, which made planning your life difficult, because you never really knew when you might be expected to work. Stupid!
But the ultimate irony, and the fatal flaw in my opinion, is that Robin is very much a full-blown REPUBLICAN RIGHT-WINGER in most respects. She may have been all hippie love and rainbows when she started the place, but now she's ALL BUSINESS, if you know what I mean. All business, but, as stated above, no business sense. Hypocrite!
Goodbye and good ridance, Country Aire. You seemed to have thought you had a monopoly on the local food market. Wrong!
Why support local businesses such as Country Aire? WalMart offers better prices.
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