South Main Street fire destroys building
Videos, stories and photos pretaining to the fire of 201 South Main Street in Mount Vernon Ohio on October 25, 2010.
MOUNT VERNON — Demolition began today on the former Kresge building at 201 S. Main St. The state fire marshal, state inspectors, Environmental Protection Agency officials and insurance company representatives were on hand as pieces of the burned structure were strategically being knocked down by an excavator with a demolition hammer.
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“A contractor has submitted paperwork to the EPA for this [demolition] process to begin,” said Mount Vernon City Engineer Cameron Keaton. “They will be working all of today and Saturday. It’s hard to tell just how long it will be until the building is down. We just need to make sure it is done properly.”
While the demolition is in process, an EPA official is on site monitoring air and checking the debris to determine if there is any hazardous material in the wreckage. Keaton expects no further closure of the streets while the demolition is in process.
“We want to get everything down into a big pile and then haul it away in trucks and dumpsters,” said Keaton. “Hopefully we can then start to open up the streets for traffic once again.”
As the demolition engineers are meticulously picking the building apart, Keaton is stressing the continued safety concern for the area. “What we don’t want is to have a big section come crashing to the ground all at once. We want to avoid any damage to the existing utilities. Even a vibration from a large crash could cause some utility damage. We’ve been told by inspectors to ‘not do anything unsafe.’”
