The Avondale Mills smoke stack had been a pretty significant local landmark in Pell City, Alabama for a long, long time. The mill that it once was attached to had been there since the 1980s and in the early 2000s it closed taking thousands of jobs with it. Soon after that there was a massive fire and most of the building was destroyed. But the smoke stack remained. Until yesterday when crews attemped to take it down with some explosives at its base. That didn’t work and simply blew a gaping hole in the bottom of the thing. Tim Phifer who was part of the demolition operation got in an excavator and made his way to the stack. That’s when things went sideways.
Phifer approached the stack in a Komatsu excavator (or track hoe depending on what part of the country you live in) and began to chip at it with the idea that he could get it to fall in the correct direction. Unfortunately while this was a good idea on paper it did not turn out to be a good one in practice as Phifer managed to drop the smoke stack on top of his excavator.He spun the machine around and used the rear of the cab to shield himself from the torrent of bricks that literally rained down upon him in the machine.
We’re thinking the next guy that fells a smoke stack at himself may not get away so cleanly. This was just incredible. Must watch!
