Power Plant brings down structures

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An early morning explosion rattled through the Liberty community in southwest Kemper County at approximately 7:45 on Saturday as demolition crews imploded some no-longer used steel structures at Mississippi Power Company’s Plant Ratcliffe site located on Hwy 493.

 

Barbara Correro, who lives on Murphy Hardy Road about 2.5 miles “from point A to point B” from the facility, said she was completely surprised by the event.

 

“It shook the entire mobile home and woke up my daughter who had been sleeping in her room,” she said. “A few minutes later it repeated. We didn’t know what had happened, but your mind just goes right to the coal plant.”

 

She said an event like that hadn’t happened before so the people in the community weren’t exactly sure what was going on.

 

Ratcliffe Plant Manager Bruce Herrington said that the implosion was anticipated and went off as planned.

 

“What it entailed was removing some of the tall structures on the site,” Herrington told a local media outlet. “What they typically do is use some equipment to actually cut the steel. But when the structure is very tall they can’t reach them, so they have to fell it. They used some explosives and knocked the building down.”

 

Although the company, which began construction more than a decade ago, now uses natural gas instead of lignite coal, MPC still produces some of the power for more than a quarter of the 82 counties in Mississippi.

 

Correro said she and her neighbors had no idea the implosion was gong to take place that day.






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