A jackhammer reduced prototypes of U.S. President Donald Trump's prized border wall into piles of rubble Wednesday, a quick ending to an experiment that turned into a spectacle at times.
Crews work during demolition of border wall prototypes at the border between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019, in San Diego. Last Updated Wednesday, February 27, 2019 11:45PM EST
Within about two hours, a hydraulic jackhammer on an excavator levelled seven prototypes. Concrete slabs crashed in small clouds of dust, steel panels were knocked over, and an owl flew out of a steel tube atop one panel just before it thundered down. The last prototype standing took a little more time to destroy.
Removal of prototypes made way to extend a second-layer barrier of steel poles topped by a metal plate rising 30 feet from the ground, the same design being used elsewhere on the border. The new barrier vaguely resembles some of the steel prototypes but looks nothing like the solid concrete panels, which were widely panned because border agents couldn't see what was happening on the other side.
The Department of Homeland Security redirected $20 million from its budget in February 2017, a month after Trump took office, to pay for the prototypes and smaller mock-ups built farther from the border that have also been dismantled. Open bidding generated a wide range of ideas, some of them whimsical or far-fetched. One bidder wanted a wall large enough for a deck that would offer tourists scenic views of the desert.
Ross Wilkin, a Border Patrol spokesman, noted that authorities never claimed the prototypes would be impenetrable and that they simply wanted to know how much time it took to crack each one.
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