Followup: Hurricane Damaged Louisiana High Rise Imploded, Is Gone

 Back in June, we told you about the 22-story Capital One Tower in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that sat vacant and boarded up since Category 4 Hurricane Laura trashed it back in August, 2020.  

The old Capital One skyscraper in Lake Charles, Louisiana 
comes down on September 7 after sitting vacant for
years. It was badly damaged when 
Hurricana Laura struck in 2020.

Much or even most of its green reflective glass windows were blown out. Offices inside the tower - the tallest in Lake Charles - were severely damaged or destroyed. 

The building sat boarded up, sad, ugly and untouched since then, as insurers, property owners and developers wrangled over its fate. 

Finally, with the help of the mayor of St. Charles putting his foot down, it was decided to just get rid of it. The mayor said the damn thing had kind of outlived its usefulness even before the hurricane. 

On September 7, demolition crews imploded the building as people in the city gathered to watch. It came down in a matter of seconds. This might well be the largest building-  or at least the tallest - in the United States that had to be demolished due to damage from a weather disaster. 

The area where the building was will be redeveloped. 

Videos

News crew guides us through the demolition. Click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that:

Another video: Again, click on this link, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Hurricane Season Beginning, As Fate Of Landmark Hurricane-Trashed Louisiana Skyscraper Is Sealed

The Capital One Tower in Lake Charles, Louisiana will
be demolished later this year after sitting abandoned
and seriously damaged for four years after Hurricane Laura.

At around 1 a.m. August 27, 2020,  Hurricane Laura smashed into the coastline of of southwestern Louisiana as a powerful Cat 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph. 

It was the strongest hurricane to strike that section of coastline since records began in 1851.

As you can imagine, coastal towns and cities like Cameron, Sulfur, and Lake Charles in Laura's eyewall, where the winds were strongest suffered catastrophic damage. 

One of the iconic images after the hurricane was the Capital One Tower, the tallest building in Lake Charles. A majority of its green reflective glass windows were blown out. Most of the offices inside were badly damaged or destroyed.

The building oddly has just sat there, wrecked and untouched ever since the hurricane blew threw nearly four years ago. Now, something that seems like a bit of a waste, the Capital One Tower is going to be torn down.

According to local news reports:

"Following a long battle between the owner, Hertz Investment Group and its insurance company, and many attempts to find a developer to restore the tower, Mayor Nic Hunter announced that the "eyesore" will likely be torn down late this summer.

'Ultimately, private industry was not able to save this building," Hunter said" 

Although floods, hurricanes and tornadoes routinely destroy buildings, it's rare, maybe unprecedented for entire skyscraper to completely fall victim to a storm.

This building was completed in 1982 and went through a bunch of name changes before becoming the Capital One Tower not long before Hurricane Laura. 

The 22-story building was completed in 1982.  After the hurricane, there was a long insurance process. A bit of repair work was started, but then it was announced the building was up for sale. Nothing came through.

Mayor Hunter said through the building was iconic, it kind of started to outlive its usefulness for downtown Lake Charles even before Hurricane Laura. He'd like to see the area redeveloped in a way that brings fresh energy to the city. 

A large parking garage on the site will remain. A boatload of communications equipment atop the skyscraper that's still servicing the Lake Charles area will need to be moved before demolition.

 The closest other example I've seen to a skyscraper being torn down from storm damage was The Tower, a 35-story building in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

Fort Worth was hit by a powerful tornado in March, 2000.  Most of the Tower's windows were blown out, and the interior suffered extensive damage. Water damage from ruptured sprinklers made it worse, and black mold developed. 

The Tower was still structurally sound, but the damage was so great that developers decided to implode it. But costs and dangers to that idea became prohibitive. 

A developer ended up buying the Fort Worth building and converted it into luxury condominiums. 

A 20-story Tulsa, Oklahoma high rise was heavily damaged in a 2017 tornado and sat vacant for several years. Like the Fort Worth building, it was sold and redeveloped into luxury apartments. Residents started moving into the building this year.   

Recently a severe storm blew out hundreds of windows in Houston skyscrapers, but those buildings are expected to be repaired and reopened if they haven't already.    

Hurricane Delta Update; Vermont Freeze, Drought, Storms And Rain

Hurricane Delta is behaving pretty much as forecasters have thought all along as it approaches the Louisiana coastline toward evening. 

Hurricane Delta on a approach to Louisiana this morning.

That "weakening" trend that was predicted was starting to happen, but that doesn't really matter at this point. Delta will clobber Louisiana. 

The hurricane as of early this morning had top winds of 120 mph and was about 200 miles south of Cameron, Louisiana. 

With upper level winds coming from the southwest, Hurricane Delta will have sort of a lopsided appearance, with the heaviest weather along and east of its center.  It won't look like that classic, spherical storm with a sharp eye right in the middle. 

Those upper level winds, and coolish waters near the coast will contribute to the storm's weakening trend today.

Weakening does not mean weak in this case.  There will be still be damaging hurricane force winds in Louisiana and destructive storm surges. 

Hurricane Delta will come ashore probably no more than 15 miles or so east of where Hurricane Laura did in late August. Laura really did a number on the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana. 

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't be too worried about Lake Charles with the way this latest hurricane is developing.  With Hurricane Delta going by to the east of Lake Charles, winds won't be quite as bad there as they would be further east. They could gust to hurricane force there, but strongest winds would avoid Lake Charles. 

Had Delta been the only hurricane hitting the area this year, Lake Charles would suffer quite a bit of tree damage, pretty extensive power outages and a little structural damage here and there. 

However, as mentioned yesterday, Lake Charles has not had nearly enough time to recover from Hurricane Laura.  The wind will easily rip off a lot of those  thousands of blue tarps covering damaged roofs.  That will expose the interior of buildings to the hurricane's torrential rains which will cause a lot of water damage.

There's also piles of debris left over from Laura.  Much of that debris will be blown around by the wind, creating projectiles that will cause even more damage to homes and businesses.  Highways heading out of Lake Charles were jammed with traffic Friday as people wisely fled the city. 

Hurricane Delta will also hit areas relatively unscathed by Laura, causing destructive storm surges and flooding from torrential rains as far east at New Orleans and beyond.

It is very rare for hurricanes to hit basically the same spot twice in one season, but it's not unheard of. In 2004, Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne came ashore right around Stuart, Florida within three weeks of each other. 

VERMONT UPDATE

Burlington, Vermont had its first real frost and freeze of the season this morning, ending the growing season there (Most of the rest of Vermont had killing frosts in mid-September.

This means the growing season in Burlington was right around average this year. The last freeze of the season in the spring was on May 9 and the first frost of the autumn was August 9.  Both dates were two days later than average, so the length of Burlington's growing season, at least was exactly as it ought to be. 

Just a little bit of drought improvement in 
Vermont this week. Orange shades are drought
Yellow is just "abnormally dry"

Temperatures will be in a bit of a yo-yo pattern for the next several days. Some days, like today, will be cool. Saturday will be warmer than normal, followed by a pretty decent cool down for Sunday. Rinse and repeat. 

These ups and downs imply that there will be some storms, or at least some cold and warm fronts around.  This further suggests rain. And we will get some.  Which is great because we need to continue picking away at the drought in Vermont. 

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, released yesterday, shows a little, tiny bit of improvement in Vermont after last week's rains. 

Nearly 30 percent of the state, mostly in the Northeast Kingdom, is still in severe drought.  That's unchanged from a week earlier. 

However, the percentage of the state in moderate drought fell from about 76 percent to 57 percent. Last week, the entire remainder of the state was abnormally dry.  That's still almost true, but a tiny sliver of southwestern Vermont is no longer considered "dry."

Rainfall so far this month has been near normal.  A cold front later tomorrow will create a band of showers and thunderstorms. That will put down some light rain, maybe a quarter of an inch, across northern Vermont especially. Every little bit helps!

There's still a chance some of Saturday's storms could turn out to be locally severe, which is a bit odd for October, but whatever. 

A wetter cold front could come through Tuesday. If all goes to plan, and that is a real if, the cold front could collect some leftover moisture from Hurricane Delta and dump a half inch to an inch of rain on us. Again, that would give us continued progress toward relieving the drought, but not entirely eliminate it. 

At least we seem to be headed in the right direction.