RCA Dome Implosion.

The RCA dome imploded today....or rathers, the implosion of the RCA dome was part of the destruction of the building on the site in order to allow development of the next door convention center.

The RCA Dome will be demolished Saturday morning.
Those interested in watching the destruction will only have a couple of decent vantage points.
One spot is at the corner of South, West and Kentucky, the other is the corner of Illinois and Georgia.
Demolition Project Manager Tom Scheele says any other vantage point, at least from ground level, will be blocked by something.
Scheele would like to discourage the public from trying to turn the blast into an event only because he says, "we don't want a whole bunch of people all the sudden saying 'well, there's no place to stand." He suggests the best spot to watch Saturday's implosion will be on TV.

Well, indeed, and we've video of the RCA dome implosion in just a moment.

Indianapolis - It's the end of an era for the RCA Dome, which will be imploded Saturday morning.

Friday, workers began covering nearby buildings in black tarp, including the first three floors of the Pan Am Building.

"Basically, it's for dust control and air blast control," said Tom Scheele, vice president of Shiel Sexton.

The air blast from the explosives could reach up to 75 miles an hour with dust blowing 200 feet away. St Johns Catholic Church is one building that won't be wrapped. Its historic, stained glass windows already have a protective coating, installed decades ago.

The RCA dome implosion isn't of course, as simple as just putting a huge pile of explosives inside.

The Indiana Stadium and Convention Building Authority this afternoon announced additional details about the planned implosion of the RCA Dome.

The remainder of the 24-year-old dome will be destroyed at 9 a.m. on Saturday when contractors will place explosive charges in about 800 locations around the Dome.

800? Wow!

The implosion is expected to bring down the entire building in about 25 seconds.

Indianapolis-based Shiel Sexton Inc. will conduct the implosion. A safety perimeter will be set up around the dome, bound by Maryland Street to the north, West Street to the west, Illinois Street to the east and Merrill Street to the south.

The straight north and south sections of the stadium will fall first in the implosion, followed by the east and west sections. The dome’s four corners would be the last to fall.

And what actually did happen in the implosion?

It took about 20 seconds and 875 explosive devices to reduce a landmark piece of the Indianapolis skyline to a broken pile of rubble.

About 9:35 a.m. today, demolition experts imploded the 24-year-old RCA Dome in Downtown Indianapolis, leaving a massive ring of debris.

The demolition expert who oversaw the implosion said everything went as planned.
“Everything looks really good,” said Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. “I’m actually surprised the debris is as low as it is.”

Everything went just as planned...good news there.

Here's the video of the start of the RCA Dome deconstruction. No, not today's implosion, rather, the beginning a few months back when they turned off the fans and allowed the roof to start collapsing.

Here's another view of that same event.

And finally, the video of todays RCA Dome implosion.