Tampa Double Tree implosion: Watch a 10-story Florida hotel crashing down

A Double Tree hotel in Tampa was leveled to the ground by an implosion early Wednesday morning.

The Florida Department of Transportation was responsible for the implosion. The property will be used as a staging area for a$1 billion construction project on the Westshore interchange that will start late next year.

Several Tampa residents posted about the explosion on the Tampa subreddit.

“I live right off Westshore across from the mall, wtf was that loud banging/explosion?” one Redditor wrote around 1 a.m. “I jumped up and opened my back patio and the windows were rattling so hard. Freaked me the hell out.”

Another user responded: “Can confirm I heard it too in westshore area. Started off sounding like a loud trash can, then a freight truck, and then what sounded like an airstrike.”

Another said: “Clap clap. Sounded like a big slab of metal the size of a bus that got dropped from a plane and landed on a building. The banging trash can on the first few is spot on. Then sh-t got real. That was wild”

Another posted: “I’m by the airport and thought a plane crashed”

Still another posted: “I’m in the neighborhood rite across the interstate. It sounded like 10 shipping containers were dropped out of a plane and landed on my neighbors house. It got louder and louder and louder. The final one I got out of bed and started heading for the door.”

And the descriptions got wilder from there: “It sounded like a giant manatee flopping down the roof of the Amalie arena sideways onto streetcar filled with ybor city chickens going 100 miles per hour into the old skyway bridge.”