TOP SHOP DEMOLITION COMPLETED

May brought some excitement, both manmade and natural, to the Top Shop project at the summit of Grandfather Mountain.

The demolition crew finished taking the building down and cleaning up the debris this month after almost four weeks of hard work.

High winds the evening of Sunday, May 11 and on into Monday, May 12 caused damage across Grandfather Mountain. (We do not know how hard the wind blew that night because our anemometer was off-line, but we know from the damage that it exceeded 100 mph.)

Trees were blown down across the Mountain while lots of excitement occurred up at the Top Shop construction site. Winds blew off some siding from the temporary top shop located in the parking lot and a port-o-john was destroyed along with sections of the construction fence.

A mountain-owned Honda Civic was blown across the parking lot and its windows were shattered. The vehicle was moved across four spaces and pushed into a ditch.

Some debris from the construction site was blown down to the switchbacks but the completion of a wind-barrier wall at the edge of the parking lot just a week before the storm prevented the prevailing northwest winds from doing major damage to the temporary gift shop.

“We weathered the storm fairly well,” said Greene Construction Project Manager Mike Best. “If the winds had come about a week earlier we would have had much more damage and debris lying around.”

But even as Best was counting his blessings, his men were adding shoring blocks to the back of the wind barrier to provide even more support during the next high winds.

The crew then moved on to blasting a large 10 foot x 17 foot x 11 foot boulder that needed to be removed to accommodate the footings. Additional excavation was necessary to accommodate the new elevator because the manufacturer requires a six foot pit at the bottom of the shaft. A drill was used to make six-foot holes down into the rock and then a hoe ram was brought in to hammer and break the rock.

The project is on schedule so far. The footprint for the new foundation has been laid out and the crew hopes to start forming the footers in the next two weeks.

To see regular updates as the project progresses, visit the Grandfather Mountain web site and click on the link to construction photos found in the right-hand column on the homepage.

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