The First Facility Management Blog

One minute your childhood home is there. The next minute, it’s gone. So are family heirlooms and other personal items. Why? Faulty GPS coordinates.

For Al Byrd, owner of the house, this mishap by Southern Environmental Services of Marietta, GA was unforgivable. And while the house was unoccupied, there was absolutely no reason to justify the demolition. The company had no address but claims it had all of its paperwork in order based on GPS coordinates.

For anyone who has ended up in the wrong place based on faulty GPS instructions, well, it’s not too hard to imagine such an incident. But to base something as conclusive as a house demolition on GPS coordinates, well, that does seem to rate more than just an apology from the company.

One of my older cousins is a demolition expert. He makes a living blowing up buildings. As a kid, I never quite understood the significance of this job, even though my dad was a civil engineer early in his career.

This sequence may have few repetitions and embellishments, but it is a tribute to demolitions done well (unlike the Demolition Fail I posted here back in January). Some of these explosions/implosions are spectacular illustrations of how facility managers feel when frustrated by their buildings. (Great music by The Prodigy too!)

(The one at the 30 second mark is quite beautiful, in my opinion!)

(Graphic: Stuart B. Millner & Associates, www.sbmac.com)

Sometimes, when you’re trying to make something better, you actually make it worse.

Here is a short video that illustrates the consequences of an overly zealous building demolition team:

And here’s another one (note the nice advertisement for the firm in charge of the demolition):