SUNBURY — At 4:25 p.m. Thursday, 160 pounds of dynamite brought a bit of the old industrial era to a close.

The former Knight-Celotex brick boiler house collapsed and disappeared in about two seconds, while the site’s two iconic smokestacks tipped northeastward, and fell.

An additional 42 pounds of shape charges, cylinders that fire steel fragments like shrapnel, were used to slice interior supports and make the operation quick and elegant.

Once the dynamite and charges were set off, it was all over in about five seconds.

Observers, however, waited in 80-degree heat, with little respite from the sun, for 85 minutes past the announced blast time of 3 p.m.

The blast crew was checking and re-checking the charges, said Jeff Stroehmann, vice president of operations for Moran Industries, the Watsontown company that will own the site. Then a Sunbury fire crew, which had been kept away, needed about 10 minutes to set water hoses, he said.

After the blast, they provided a water curtain to keep the dust down.

Nevertheless, the area was enveloped in a milk-chocolate-brown cloud of smoke that drifted the way of the smokestacks as observers turned to leave.

About 50 people were on hand to watch the implosions, but they were mostly local officials, the site’s owners, demolition workers, police, media, fire police and paramedics. A few families of the work crews were on hand, with a half-dozen or so small children, but, for the most part, the event was unobserved by Sunbury residents.  

It is unknown how far the blast was heard. The work was performed by Winchester Blasting Services of Knoxville, Tenn.

“It went perfectly,” Stroehmann said. “It was symbolic for clearing the way for the Renaissance that is going to go on.”

“Down with the old,” he said. “And we’re going to come crashing in with the new.”

Moran Industries redevelops former industrial sites. Clearing out the Celotex property is a joint venture between Moran and Scrap Trade of Ohio.

When it’s fully cleared, which will take until spring or summer 2011, Moran will buy it from Scrap Trade. It envisions developing it into a warehousing and distribution center, Stroehmann said.   

“Serving the natural gas industry is one of the possibilities,” he said.

What makes the site a gem is the adjacent railroad spur, he said. This is the fourth such project for Moran.

“When choosing site for redevelopment, we always look for a railroad component because it’s efficient,” he said.

“One ton of rail freight goes 426 miles on one gallon of (diesel) fuel,” he said. “Every rail car that comes in and out of this site will take three tractor-trailer trucks off the highway.”

Stroehmann said at one time Pennsylvania had the heaviest and best rail infrastructure in the nation.

“Remnants of it are still here,” Stroehmann said. “And from Pennsylvania, you can reach 40 percent of the nation’s population in eight hours. It’s a strategic location.”

Another plus to rail, he said, is that 10 miles of rail can be built for every mile of highway.

Transportation costs are the third-largest operating expense for manufacturing, Stroehmann said, after labor and energy, and  the next generation of manufacturers will benefit from sites like this.

“If we embed a concept of long haul rail with short haul trucking, we eliminate all truck traffic that runs through our state and gives us little to no benefit,” he said. “And, we create a sector of good family-sustaining trucking jobs where the driver goes out and comes homes the same night, as opposed to long-haul trucking, which is the pits of the industry.”



Future of site “bright”

Sunbury City Councilman Jim Eister, who was on hand for the demolition, suggested it was a bittersweet event.

“It’s a shame we lost Celotex, because it did employ a lot of people — over 100 — but the future of the site is bright,” he said.

Longtime Celotex employee Kevin Troup, also a city councilman, watched his former workplace go down.

Bruce Rea, of Milton, site supervisor for Scrap Trade, said the first industry on the site was built in 1898.  The boiler house that was demolished was built in 1900. At that time it was a textile factory.

“By World War II it was owned by Westinghouse, and they made electrical components for the military,” Rea said.

“There are three bomb shelters in there,” he said, “complete with fresh air systems and water supply — the whole works.”

In 1955, he said, it became a fiberboard mill for Allied Chemical.  

Rea said he worked for Celotex as plant engineer from 2003 to 2007.

“At one point we produced 650 tons of oak chips per day,” he said. “We dried them after we formed the board.”

That’s what accounted for the area’s characteristic sawdust smell.

“Oak chips cooking,” Rea said.

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