Promptly at 9am this morning the WMAL radio broadcast towers were brought down with carefully timed explosive charges. There were a reasonably sized group of people at the Renita Lane entrance to the towers where I was. Earlier in the morning I spoke to one of the people who was detonating the charges and he said that the plan was to do a quick perimeter sweep right at 9am and set them off as soon after that as possible. He was planning to be safely behind his truck, out of sight of the towers. Everyone was kept well behind the fence, right at the edge of the property so the chance of any debris coming that far was very small.
In addition to the normal neighborhood people, there were several who grew up in the area but no longer lived there, including one person I talked to who had climbed all four towers as a teenager, and been arrested as he came down from one.
The towers were removed so that the Amalyn Bethesda project consisting of 309 single family houses and townhouses can be built in this area.
The exclusion zone is determined both by danger of debris and by the shock waves from the explosives.
ReplyDeleteHere is my view from Greentree Road:
WMAL Radio Tower Demolition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1_HZudIaYQ