Implosion video of the South Bay Power Plant in San Diego
Implosion of the South Bay Power Plant. One of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed.
I got up this morning at 4:30 (usually that’s when Zoey the Cool Cat and I are heading to bed) with the intent of getting to the implosion site early. Instead, the route I would normally take, the shortest route, didn’t start until later on Saturday, which would cause me to arrive at the implosion site at about 7:16 a.m. Unfortunately, the implosion was scheduled to occur at 7:00 a.m. (it acturally occurred at 7:05 a.m.).
Internet. San Diego Trolley site. I looked at all the Trolley schedules
for Saturday. I found a way to get me to the implosion site at about
6:58 a.m. Ooooh. That would be cutting it close. The route was about seven miles longer than my normal route, but as of February 1, 2013, it would only have one connection instead of three.
I thought it would be worthwhile to go since the weather might not cooperate, maybe causing them to delay the implosion by several minutes. If I did miss the implosion, I’d still be able to take some pictures of the result, giving me some after pictures to go with before pictures that I already had. To wit:
Sure enough, I got there at exactly 6:58 a.m., rushing to find a good vantage point to set up my tripod. Ha! There wasn’t a square inch of vacant land at any of the good viewpoints, so I squeezed my way in amongst the crowd and resolved that I would have to take a video by holding my camera far above my head. I wouldn’t be the only one doing that, so I didn’t feel out of place:
After the implosion, I went exploring, walking about eight miles along South Bay and its beaches. Including the implosion, I took 282 pictures — South Bay Salt Works, Chula Vista Bayfront Park, Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Chula Vista Discovery Center….
Oh, and one movie.
I guess it’s the move you want to see, isn’t it?
Well, here it is. I did away with the audio at about the 21 second mark, but make sure you turn the volume up for those first 21 seconds to get the effect of the explosions. I was about 1,000 feet away, and we not only heard the explosions, we felt them, too.
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Posted on February 2, 2013, in Halls of History, History, Manmade, Out & About, Photos and tagged south bay power plant implosion video. Bookmark the permalink. 52 Comments.
too cool. thanks for sharing .. and for getting up and getting there!
Great video!
Did you watch the implosion with your eyes, or through the camera screen?
My original intent was to put the camera on the tripod so that I could record a video AND watch it with my own eyes. Alas, I had to watch it through the camera screen in order to get a good video for people like you……….lol
Amazing – thanks for sharing it – I almost felt like I was there
Fantastic catch on film. Thanks for sharing!
Now that is interesting.
Ah, a job for retired terrorists!
lol
Wow! Thank you for sharing that.
Phew! Glad you made it. What will happen to all the debris? Landfill?
Good question. I’m hoping that since most of it is metal, it can be melted down and recycled.
Here’s hoping!
Impressive. Thanks for watching through the video for “us”.
Looks like all went well, awesome. Zoey looks very comfy there.
Incredible!
It was eery, watching the implosion, after you cut the sound. Zoey looks semi-impressed.
Wow Russell
What fun you have!! Hope you are not like a hurricane chaser, we hear strange things about you Americans.
I’ve chased a lot of things in my life, but hurricanes and tornadoes are not on the list. In fact, they are part of the reason why I abandoned the Texas Gulf Coast for San Diego.
That was so cool
That was a great video and thanks for the before and afters also.
Great video.
I need to move from Alabama to somewhere to get away from the tornado’s….but then don’t you have earthquakes? Frying pan to the fire.
The cat is totally unimpressed with all this. I speak cat!
Definitely not “frying pan to the fire.” Check to see how often a big earthquake hits San Diego or any city. Check how often earthquakes and tornadoes hit the same city, over and over and over again, year after year. Just the same getting read for hurricane season and the next hurricane five days away took at lot out of me. I’ve been through eight big hurricanes but not a single big earthquake.
Thank you for the reply…since the tornado season now last all year long, as evidenced by this past year, I seriously need to leave. I would hate to lose everything. I don’t know how the people who are hit decide to rebuild in the same place….
I know. I don’t miss hurricane season or the threat of year-round tornadoes. Granted, we have the threat of year-round earthquakes, but they just don’t weigh on my mind like the tornadoes and hurricanes did each year.
By the way, I have billions of relatives along the Gulf Coast, from Corpus Christi to New Orleans. Katrina destroyed three of their homes (sister in Chalmette, nephew in Slidell, neice in New Orleans) and put four feet of water into another sister’s home in Slidell, the only one that was salvaged.
I am so sorry to hear this. My children’s father’s home was under water…still working on same. The old family house stood the test better than the brick house. Waveland was demolished as a town.
Very impressive! I moved out of Iowa and don’t miss tornado’s although we’ve had rare ones here in Colorado too. Nothing is predictable anymore, except weather disasters.
Thank you for that! Brilliant!
It’s always cool to watch implosions … kind of … mesmerizing
Love your avatar, and I’m glad Zoe approves of this post 
That was incredible, thanks for sharing.
Impressive. I can’t imagine the engineering that would go into that in terms of containing the implosion as the structure fell.
Wow. That is like nothing I have ever seen before. And the number of people watching is crazy! Looks like you got there just in time.
WOW! That’s really intense!
That was cool! Would have been better if Godzilla showed up and just knocked and smashed it to pieces. LOL!
Great video! So fast for everything to come down. Makes you think!
Did you see the face in the clouds? Amazing!
That’s why I included another 30 seconds after the explosion.
That was so cool! See you in two months!
Two months? Where are you going? Wherever you go, take pictures to share with us.
Wow! That was spectacular. How often do you get to be right on the spot to catch something like that!!
In my case, 57 years, 10 months, 19 days………..lol
hahaha – I guess mine will have to be longer than that!!! hahaha. How are you doing???
Most excellent video. Glad you made it in time.
Great movie Russ… but I really like the shot of the people taking images of the implosion… very nice
I love how it went down like dominos
I see “San Diego” so often in your posts that when I saw this on t.v. and the location, I thought about you. LOL
It’s always awesome to see things go BOOM! And look at that! So many Russel Ray minion.
Cool!
Interesting！ large-scale!
Not sure what the implosion of the electrical plant is all about, but thanks for camping out on my Pacific NW Author blog.
I wish that the oil companies would dismantle the oil refineries near Anacortes, Washington since they’re ugly and polluting. Then we would have a more expansive view of the San Juan Islands.
Your post inspires me in this way.
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