It's been a while since a casino-hotel was felled by controlled explosives.

Schlecht, safety coordinator for Las Vegas-based Burke Construction who said the preparation extended to covering nearby pools, including at the neighboring Marriott hotel. What took seconds to destroy required several months of planning and 4,400 pounds of explosives, said Anthony O. 'That also looks like our wallet this week,' he said. Pointing to the leftover rubble, Kuhn joked that it resembled something else. 'It was one of the best experiences of my life,' Dickerson said. After telling their tale, the trio earned an exclusive invite to watch the building crumble from across the street alongside the developer, his family, friends and members of the press. 'It was truly amazing.'ĭickerson, 35, her boyfriend Pete Kuhn, 38, and Las Vegas local Cherie DeWilde, who first alerted her friend to the impending implosion, had been scoping out the casino-hotel earlier Monday when they got to talking with the construction crew. 'We don't do this in Wisconsin,' she said after the dust had almost settled. Amanda Dickerson had never stayed at the Clarion or any of its incarnations, but she reveled in its demise early Tuesday morning after traveling from Ripon, Wis., to check an unlikely item off her life's bucket list: witness a building implosion in person.