A huge piece of the Hard Rock Hotel structure came crashing to the ground this morning.
People not in the know were frightened by the collapse, fearful another disaster for the hard luck property was occurring.
But in reality, the structural collapse was planned and executed to do exactly what it was supposed to.
“They were demo’ing the Burgundy Wing and hit it just right and the whole thing came straight down,” Local Engineer Walter Zehner, told WWL-TV. “Which is exactly what we hoped it would do. Things are fine we are all happy with the way it worked out.”
The collapse caused large plumes of smoke to rise on the Burgundy Street side of the building.
The Burgundy Wing protruded on the river-side of the opposite of the collapsed Rampart side. Zehner says the controlled collapse was performed by striking the upper level of steel-framed floors so that the beams, columns, and concrete floors fell onto the stable eighth-floor parking deck, which is entirely concrete.
Metal stud walls initially collapsed into a drop zone for falling debris and rest of the steel beam structure came down on top of it.
That drop zone consisted of the three historic buildings torn down before the actual demolition of the structure took place.
“Unfortunately, it had to be done,” Zehner told WWL-TV. “I’m into historic preservation, but there was no way to demo (the Hard Rock) leaving those in there.”
Now that the Burgundy side is down, demolition contractors and engineers will begin working on the Iberville side of the structure, the one facing a parking structure.
Bill Kearney, spokesman for 1031 Canal Development—the owners of the collapsed structure, said the work consisted “part of a series of small, controlled removals. It’s going to continue to happen like this as we move forward with the demolition.”
Zehner said he understood why felt the collapse was happening all over again.
“It looked a lot like the original collapse when it came down, but it was exactly what we had hoped it would do.”