See the South Padre Highrise Implosion Live

The Ocean Tower High-rise implosion is big news for the Island and good news for The Shores master planned community, we will be posting photos and videos as it is happening right here, weather permitting.

History will be made and we'll be filming it from across the street on the balcony of the Franke Brothers Realty building. The Franke brother twins are the owners/developers of The Shores, and they also live there. One on the Beach side, the other on the bay side. So you can bet they are happy about the failed tower project finally going away. This should clear the way for even better sales and more development at The Shores.

• Check http://www.youtube.com/texasgulfcoastonline for the video of the "event" and interviews with Dennis Franke.
• Read more about the history leading to the implosion here.

The basic idea of explosive demolition is quite simple: If you remove the support structure of a building at a certain point, the section of the building above that point will fall down on the part of the building below that point. If this upper section is heavy enough, it will collide with the lower part with sufficient force to cause significant damage. The explosives are just the trigger for the demolition. It's gravity that brings the building down. Demolition blasters load explosives on several different levels of the building so that the building structure falls down on itself at multiple points. When everything is planned and executed correctly, the total damage of the explosives and falling building material is sufficient to collapse the structure entirely, so cleanup crews are left with only a pile of rubble.

Sample successful building implosion

All that is left of the Ocean Tower