Months after a 123-ton boulder smashed into the side of an Alpine business complex, seriously damaging the building and rupturing a gas line, the building is being destroyed.
Owner Scott Thomas, who runs Alpine Equipment and Party Rentals on Alpine Boulevard with his wife Kelli, got behind the controls and began the demolition. The boulder was too heavy to remove at the time.
Thomas said once the building is down, they can assess how much damage there is to the rest of the structure and then begin to rebuild.
In February, a boulder, estimated to weigh in at 247,000 pounds rolled down the hillside and crashed into the two-story building.
“It looks like it’s melting,” Kelli Thomas said of the building at the time.
The boulder stands 11 feet wide and is taller than a single story home, repair crews say.
When the Thomases built the business 15 years ago, they never considered the potential of a boulder rolling down the hill behind them.
“It was always, ‘They might come down,’” Scott said of a rockslide or mudslide. “Slow slide, or mud trickling, or something like that — but that’s more like a ‘boom’ than a slip.”
A crane operator told the owners that he can’t get the rock out of there until it’s pared down to 8.5 feet wide and 8.5 feet tall.
