Show 6 "I’M PROUD THAT MY SONS wanted to go into the business and proud that they've done so well said Jack Loizeaux (pronounced 8 1 the founder of Controlled Demolition Inc (CDI) “This is fun” said Doug one of Jack's sons "We've joked for yean that we get paid very well for fulfilling a childhood fantasy And it's rewarding too Some people design things and it takes years to come to fruition Wc design something and we know within I () seconds whether it works or not” On a cold November morning last year I stood in an empty Las Vegas parking lot and waited for something remarkable to happen A few hundred feet in front of me stood the reLandmaik Hotel the treat of the billionaire Howard Hughes The building was being torn down to make room for new construction At 356 feet it had long been the tallest building in Nevada It was about to become the tallest building in North America — and the second tallest in the world — to be demolished by explosives The only taller concrete building to be blown up was in Sdo Paulo Brazil It was 363 feet tall The Loizeaux family brought that one down loo For decades I had wanted to know how Jack Loizeaux and his family work One night on the evening news 24 years ago I had watched in amazement as a housing part of St Louis' Proitt-Igo- e project was demolished in little more than the Mink of an eye by a demolitions expert When he pushed a button that triggered some explosives the buildings rumbled to the ground AH buildaround the nibble the low-riings the city wanted to save stood unscarred I did not know then that I was watching the work of the Loizeauxs When Jack retired in 1986 Mark and Doug Loizeaux took over the Maryland-base- d company founded by their father in 1 960L Marie 48 is president and Doug 43 is vice president They alternate projects Mark designed the explosive plan for the Landmark Hotel and it seems he found himself dogged by the spirit of the eccentric Howard Hughes To begin with no blueprints existed for the building "They would build a floor then tear up the plans and build another floor” Mmk said Where the Loizeauxs thought they would find plumbing and wiring they discovered a hidden staircase running the heigh of the building from Hughes' penthouse to a secret exit at street level The building had no beams: each of its floors was a concrete luh-wah-- so) 32-sto- once-legenda- ty ld se The Let Mux tagacy: Maeay In (rent ef the Hetet LawWneHt with (l-- r) UhcteDoNg slab that hung loosely from the four sets of pillars and the elevator shaft "This is essentially five buildings” Mark explained "Any of the pillars or the elevator shaft could stand alone I think the building will sit down a couple of floors and then fall over" he said confidently The interior of the hotel had been stripped Demolition equipment had bit off most of the outer walls of the lower four floors Inside I found three generations of Loizeauxs at work Mark and Doug and Mark's daughter Stacey 23 were threading lengths of thin Nue cord into holes drilled in the building's interior walls Stacey's sister Adrienne 19 was busily taking pictures of the work This is explosive cord" Doug ex plained "The walls are 13 inches thick It will take them down" Although 81 yean old Jack Loizeaux was helping to stuff sticks of dynamite into the stout columns that formed the building's main support "Every time I do a job I thank the Lord for gravity" he said "That's what does our work" In every project the Loizeauxs follow one baric principle: "We'll use less than 100 pounds of explosives to bring down however many hundreds of tons the building weighs" The building would be toppled by planting explosives in the walls and columns facing the parking lot and cutting through to weaken die wall that faced the street “It's like felling a tree" M nwmxaMMS r nruc l whuv I C H A E "This is rewarding” says Doug ”Soms people design things and ft takes years to come to fruition We design something and we know within 10 seconds if it works” L Mun-amaa- RYAN |