By Robin MacLennan
Ontario Construction News staff writer
The controlled destruction of a Detroit power plant on Friday morning rattled windows and startled residents living in Windsor.
DTE Energy demolished the abandoned Conners Creek facility, located about two kilometres from Windsor’s Riverside neighbourhoods, in an “explosive felling” operation — similar to a controlled implosion — sending tremors across the region.
After fielding calls from residents concerned that the loud noise and shaking was caused by an earthquake, Windsor Police posted a message on Twitter.
“If you heard a loud bang or felt some shaking in the area…this may have been the cause!” police wrote, including a video of the demolition.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the power plant was almost 105 years old. It was situated on 75 acres of industrial property. No street closures or evacuations were deemed necessary for the demolition operation.
It crashed to the ground in a cloud of smoke and dust in a matter of seconds.
“It fell within five seconds,” Eric Younan, spokesman for the Detroit-based energy company told the Windsor Star. “That’s what we expected. It happened as planned.”
He said explosive charges on the building were set to make it fall in a certain direction rather than in an implosion, where the structure would fall in on itself.
“If you think about it as a three-legged stool and you want the stool to fall a certain way, you remove a leg to make it fall that way,” he said. “That’s kind of what we did today.”
The coal-fired plant, located on 40 acres of land along the Detroit River, was decommissioned in 2008. Until its retirement, the plant operated in various configurations since 1915, employing more than 350 people by 1957 and producing energy to power nearly 400,000 homes.
In 1996, the plant and its seven identical 352-foot smokestacks nicknamed “Seven Sisters” were demolished, leaving two stacks built in the 1950s, “Two Brothers”, standing.
The site will be cleared and turned over to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, to expand its Jefferson North Assembly Plant and convert its Mack Avenue Engine Complex to build new versions of the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
DTE traded the property with the City of Detroit for land to build an electrical substation and a service centre.
DTE serves about 2.2 million electric customers across southeast Michigan and 1.2 million natural gas customers in the state.