CLAIBORNE COUNTY, Tenn. (WATE) — Officials with Lincoln Memorial University are explaining what occurred in Tuesday’s “construction event” that damage cars and a campus building.
There were no reported injuries in a planned explosion, followed by rock and debris flying across a parking lot, on LMU’s Harrogate campus. WATE confirmed this with a university spokesperson and Claiborne County E-911 on Wednesday.
LMU Board of Trustees Chairman, Pete DeBusk, explained Wednesday crews are taking material from a hill to build another access road on campus. The blasts that break up the hill, he estimated, take place once every two or three weeks. DeBusk described the process as drilling from the top-down, with the use of an ammonia nitrate explosive.
On Tuesday, their drill basically hit a weak spot during a planned explosion around midday, DeBusk said, and credited that the weak spot for the rock and debris flying across the parking lot, hitting several cars, and going through a building.
“There can be a fault in that wall and only mother nature knows, because mother nature put it there,” he said.
DeBusk also expressed a belief that their contractor was following protocol, and noted this hasn’t happened before in his 21 years on the board. Crews, he explained, sent alerts out ahead of their blasts and intentionally schedule them when the parking lot is empty. “These things are going to happen. I’m glad nobody got hurt,” he added.
Tavia Moore, a senior nursing student, is thankful she didn’t have class in the area Tuesday.
“I saw the shattered window, then I saw the rock go through the building, then I saw someone’s car…the window was shattered and the door was dented. It just kind of freaked me out,” she said.
DeBusk said the contractor is liable for property damage, though he pledged the university would not let damage to student vehicles go without being taken care of. University officials do not have an exact number of cars or trucks damaged in the parking lot, but they say the number already exceeds a dozen.
The access road, set to wrap up in the next couple months, aims to cut down on traffic along Highway 25 East by allowing students a direct route to Highway 63.
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