Pontiac Silverdome Imploded [VIDEO]
PONTIAC (WWJ) - A demolition crew has made a second attempt at a partial implosion of the Pontiac Silverdome — and this time, it worked.
Engineers were on site all day Monday, following Sunday's anticlimactic failed implosion that made national headlines and was the focus of numerous jokes and memes.
Steve Murray, owner of SCM Engineered Demolition called Monday's implosion a great success.
"The old girl was tough yesterday," he told WWJ's Zahra Huber,"...but we took full charge of her today. She's on the ground, and more than we expected is on the ground. It was very, very successful."
The blasts took down the metal roof ring, and large portion of the upper-level seating as well. On social media, Oakland County residents as far away as Rochester Hills reported hearing and feeling the blast.
Officials have said Sunday's attempted implosion, which was supposed to take out eight steel support beams to the decaying arena's roof, failed due to a wiring problem.
"The thing with implosions, if they were 100 percent everybody would do it," Murray said, when asked about the misfire.
The Silverdome was the home of the Detroit Lions from 1975 and the Detroit Pistons from 1978 to 1988. The Lions left the Silverdome in 2001 for Ford Field, the venue closed in 2006, and Pontiac sold the stadium at auction in 2009. The arena reopened in 2010 and hosted several events, but closed again three years later, with initial demolition plans announced in 2015.
More recently, the dilapidated dome appeared in the film "Transformers: The Last Knight." It has also served as a parking lot for hundreds repurchased Volkswagen diesel vehicles amid the carmaker's emissions cheating scandal.
Further teardown will get underway Tuesday.