Watch a Mortified Demolition Crew Accidentally Tear Down the Wrong Building

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Working in demolition is tough. The pay sucks. You’re constantly hauling garbage around. Every job is dangerous. And sometimes—sometimes—you accidentally tear down the wrong building.

That’s what happened to a crew of city contractors in Baltimore on Sunday. The Baltimore City Department of Housing had hired them to carry out an emergency demolition of an old row house that had a big hulking crack in the wall. It was going great at first. Neighbors had even come out to watch destruction. And then, with one doomed move from the excavator, a pile of bricks toppled over onto the building next door.

It took a few seconds for the dust to clear, but when it did, the neighboring building—which was not supposed to get torn down—was utterly destroyed. Fast-forward to the 50-second mark for the money shot.

Brutally, the owner of the wrongly demolished building watched it all happen from the sidewalk, but he seems pretty chill about the whole thing. “We’ll rebuild it,” Joseph Rene, a developer who owns the former home of the Laundry Mutt—which is now a pile of bricks—told The Baltimore Sun. “We have no other option.”

The city contractors did not offer the local paper any comment. Now that video of the demolition oops is racking up tens of thousands of views on YouTube, the company is surely worried about the future. That’s just another fact of life in the demolition business. Doing too much demolishing is far, far worse than not doing enough.

[deebakes]

[lost in melb.]

What a bunch of lazy mavericks...just hoeing in like that.

[deebakes]

baltimore

[lost in melb.]

I'm visiting just near there in a fortnight. flying United

[deebakes]

i almost took a position there last year, you really do need to be careful about where you end up late at night there

[Godfather]

These contractors are likely fucked. Broadly speaking, the Commercial General Liability policy which most businesses have is intended to cover liability losses from property damage caused by an 'occurrence,' defined as something unexpected, sudden and accidental, but not damage to the actual portion you were working on. For example: You're building a wall and it falls damaging a building. The wall you were working on is not covered (sometimes called the 'your work' exclusion) and you'll have to repair/replaced it out of pocket, but the building you damaged as a result of your negligence would be covered by insurance (ensuing loss exception). However, losses from the direct result of faulty workmanship is also excluded (i.e. you're fixing a hot water tank and accidentally puncture it - the tank isn't covered... but again if it causes ensuing loss, that damage is).

After a bit of research I found there actually is some case law where accidental demo of a building was covered in 2007 after the courts ruled it to be sudden and accidental, and not what you were directly working on.... but I'm imagining these contractors will still have to go to court to fight for coverage because it's really hazy.

[deebakes]

guilty