The 613-foot “North Pole” visible from three counties and Canada went boom Tuesday morning at the Lake Mariner Data Campus in Somerset. Clouds and light flurries obscured the view of the industrial stack built in 1984 for the Somerset Operating Company, a coal-fired electric generating station.
Despite 20 degree weather, nearly 20 cars assembled at a public viewing location along a farm field on Hartland Road in Somerset to see the massive structure demolished. Several bystanders were poised with cameras while snowflakes darted into their eyes.
Shortly before 8 a.m. the shadow of the stack disappeared in overcast skies above a grassy embankment surrounding the site. Bystanders remained, hoping the sky would clear and they would “see something cool.” Cars were still pulling up when a nearby thunder clap roared and vibrated off the ground.
“They did it 10 minutes early,” said Dave Murtha, an environmental scientist for Environmental Resources Management, who presided over the viewing area.
Paulette Flint of Barker was there to film the spectacle on her cell phone for her parents in Florida. “It’s a big deal!”
Unfortunately for her, the moment had passed.