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Six weeks after the JEA imploded the cooling towers at its St. John's River Power Park with great fanfare, a smaller implosion at a closed coal-fired power plant on Eastport Road caught the community, JSO and JFRD by surprise.
Despite claims that Florida Power & Light had notified the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department, media and local residents, News4Jax has confirmed that no notification was given to them by FPL.
FPL plans more implosions at the same plant at various times throughout Saturday but the messages have been mixed and confusing.
The demolition crew on site has given contrary information about exactly when the explosions or implosions would happen.
One worker on site said they ran out of dynamite and there would be no more explosions today but a short while later blasts were heard and another tower came down.
FPL closed the Cedar Bay coal-fired power plant nearly two years ago, and the Jacksonville Daily Record reported that New York-based demolition contractor DEMCO Inc. filed the application last August to begin tearing down the plant. They estimated the plant could be dismantled by March 2019.