A quarter century ago, Allen Ware enjoyed one of his high-school proms at the Broadwater hotel, once the top-tier waterfront resort in this coastal city.

Now, he’s part of a demolition team cleaning debris from the structure that was smashed last year by Hurricane Katrina. The Aug. 29 storm crushed every building on the 266-acre property.

The crew is hauling away seven decades of a resort that, in its heyday, often played host to celebrities.

Before the storm, new owners had already closed the Broadwater and were preparing to tear it down. Katrina simply expedited those plans.

It’s how the hurricane pounded the resort, and turned everything on the Broadwater property upside down that had demolition experts like Ware shaking their heads in disbelief.

Ware said he was 9 years old when Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast in August 1969.

“I remember Camille. I don’t think Camille did this much,” Ware said this week.

Over the next 90 days, what’s left of the Broadwater should be hauled to a dump site. An announcement is expected in about a month about development plans for the site.