Thousands of people braved the early morning hours Thursday to see the Plaza Hotel implode.

They came flocking to a field with chairs, cameras and smiles.

Waiting for one moment.

"We are waiting on the building to collapse on itself," laughs Julie Pool. She quickly adds, "but it's planned."

She and several other students from Texas A&M's Department of Visualization brought high definition cameras to record the moment.

A moment planned for 6:30 A.M.

"That's the perfect spot," says Kay Wilton to her husband.

Time enough to scope out a nice view.
And wait.

"They could go ahead and move it up," laughs Wilton. She and her husband raised their family in College Station.

Demolition crews have to be precise, or so we thought. 6:30 came and went and they waited.

Then an announcement over the public address system. There's a slight delay. Five minutes, the crowd it told.

It would turn into 10 minutes. Then, suddenly, an explosion.

Not everyone was ready, including some of our cameras. The seven seconds it took to reduce the Plaza went by in a flash.

"It was too fast! I didn't get it. They didn't warn us or anything," said Wilton.

Not everyone was caught off guard. One spectator summed it up pretty aptly.

"We were here and there was a building here. Now there's not a building and we're still here. America!"

Old memories shared, and new memories made, in under 10 seconds.