KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasLas Vegas' Castaways Imploded

Las Vegas' Castaways Imploded

One of the first hotel-casinos on Boulder Highway is now nothing more than a pile of dust and rubble after being imploded this morning.

The Castaways -- which used to be the Showboat -- was imploded shortly after 7 a.m. before a crowd of about 150 people.

The Castaways was near Charleston and Boulder Highway. Station Casinos owns the property. The hotel officially closed its doors two years ago. Tuesday the company announced the remaining structures on the site would be imploded.

Mark Loizeaux is with Controlled Demolition Inc., the company responsible for bringing the Castaways down. He said, "It's very fast explosives, 28,000 feet per second, about 195 pounds of explosives placed in 191 locations."

Eighteen seconds and about 200 pounds of explosives was all it took to erase the Castaways hotel and casino from the Las Vegas skyline. Loizeaux added, "Everything went really, really well. Somebody said textbook earlier."

It was a bittersweet moment for Kell Haussels who owned Castaways back when it was still the Showboat hotel and casino. "It's seeing history disappear a little bit, so it's interesting but sad."

As the lone tower came tumbling down the smoke and debris blanketed the area. But the explosion itself not as ear defeaning as once predicted. And after the dust cleared, only a large pile of rubble and the letters "Y" and "S" of the Castaways sign remained.

Now demolition and construction crews are now tackling the large task of getting rid of the 20,000 tons of steal and concrete.

Stations casinos now owns the property. They bought from a third party after Castaways went bankrupt. They say right now they don't know what they're going to do with the property. They just know the structures that once stood here weren't fit for future use.

Contact Reporter Ashanti Blaize