JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – JEA and Florida Power & Light have planned another implosion at the St. Johns River Power Park off New Berlin Road, which means people on the Northside could see and feel a shakeup on Friday morning.
The two cooling towers at the power park came down last summer and the utilities are now ready to do more work to clear the land.
Friday's implosion won't be as dramatic as the one last summer. But here is what will happen:
At 8 a.m. Friday, selective catalytic reactors (SCRs), which are pollution control devices, at the power park will be imploded. The SCRs are contained in areas of a structure that look like scaffolding. The structure also contains boilers, but those will stay for now.
JEA and FPL knew this was going to be a drawn-out process. The cooling towers coming down in June was just the first step of the $68 million project to close the power park.
On Wednesday, crews were setting the explosives that will bring down the SCRs, which are placed near the boilers at the site. As for what people in the area can expect when the dynamite goes off, News4Jax was told there will not be a loud bang.
"They may hear a noise, some rumbling at 8 o’clock," said Gina Kyle, with JEA. "We want people to anticipate that."
Roads will not be closed, but police will be in the area to make sure traffic keeps moving. They don’t anticipate dust from the implosion to be a problem.
There will not be a public viewing site, but JEA knows people are going to try and find a spot to watch. The utility company just wants people to be safe.
Friday will not be the end of the demolition at the power park, as the boilers and the stack are set to come down sometime this summer. The reason why this is not being done all at once is so that the debris can be salvaged.
"The contractor has the ability to determine in what order they want to do things and I believe they are going to try and salvage some of the materials that they can," Kyle said. "So it’s easier if they do it piece by piece then if they try to do it all at one time."
Most of the land where the cooling towers once stood has been cleared. JEA has not determined what will happen with that land. It could be sold or redeveloped.