According to Jacob Call, master distiller and director of operations at O.Z. Tyler, the deconstruction process calls for the planned and controlled collapse of all portions of the warehouse. “We are very pleased with the progress moving into the weekend and realize it will take some time to remove all the barrels from the site, but our first concern, and priority, is safety,” said Call in a prepared statement. “We have a great team in place that is closely monitoring every step of the process.”
O.Z. Tyler noted it has been holding daily meetings with state and local officials, including representatives of the EPA. An environmental containment and response procedure has been developed exclusively for the distillery and is being used on site. It includes an earthen berm surrounding the structure, temporary concrete barricades and chain link fencing, along with erosion control devices to secure the site. An Ultra High Reach demolition excavator is being used to surgically pluck barrels from the warehouse, literally one at a time as you can see from the amazing video below.
Damaged barrels will be assessed, repaired or disposed of and the bourbon will be re-barreled and moved to storage.
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