Day 3 - Demolition Day

Demo Day...!!! This is where the fun really begins. The day starts with all the volunteers going to the check-in area and signing waivers and getting their blue shirts and hardhats. Here one of the shows Assistant Directors gives instructions to the volunteers.

Here is the family's old home during it's last few hours. Soon it will be broken up into small pieces and loaded into trucks to be hauled off to make room for the new home.

Here comes the army of blue shirts and hardhats... it won't be long until the excavators tear into the old home like a hot knife through butter. No, really... it's amazing how easily they can knock down a house. As a matter of fact, the guys operating the machines do a great job stretching out the task. If the cameras weren't rolling they could knock down an entire house like this one in a matter of about 4 or 5 minutes.

In the photos above you can see the lady who nominated the King family for the makeover. She's a single mom who says she wouldn't have been able to make it if it hadn't been for the generosity of the King family.

Below is a shot of one of the two excavators that made short work of the house. I had to shoot the image below because I just happened to be standing next to Michael (one of the designers) and he said "there's a great shot"... so what was I supposed to do? Actually, I think he was right.

And there goes the rubble into one of about 10 trucks that were used to haul everything off for recycling.

After the day's demolition festivities were done, everyone cleaned up and headed to a local restaurant where Michael MC'd a charity auction to raise money for the King family. the money raised will go into a trust fund that will be managed by a third party and it will be used to pay for things like taxes, maintenance, etc.

Through the generosity of people like the lady pictured below, the auction raised over $15,000.

After the auction, we moved to an outdoor concert (also a fund raising charity event), where people from all over Charlotte came to show their support of Extreme Makeover Home Edition and the King family.

Again, Michael held an auction, this time for a personal tour of the house after it's completed. As he said... "Ty's secret room... not so secret". There were three amazing families that ponyed up in a big way ($4000 each) and another $12,000 was raised. It was really awesome to watch the city come together and show their support. After the auction the crowd was treated to a concert by Damien Horne.

Have I mentioned that the weather has been VERY hot and EXTREMELY humid? No really, I mean REALLY HOT..!!! By the time the concert was over, your photographer here was, well about to boil over. That was before I happened across about 5 gallons of ice that had been dumped out by one of the vendors as they were packing up to leave. Faced with such an opportunity I just couldn't let all of that nice cold ice go to waste. Note to self... laying down on a bed of ice cube will cool you off in a BIG hurry.

On the way back to the hotel I ran by the jobsite and things hadn't skipped a beat. They had already set the footers and were setting up to pour the driveway and porches.

For more photos click here.