power plant I

OK, I’m back. I needed a few days of non-blogging to test the development of my blogging muscle.

Yesterday we shot photos at a decommissioned power plant in Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Electric Company. For the first time it seemed as though we really might not be able to get in. Located down by the river immediately next to a live power power plant and a sanitation truck nest, the plant was surrounded by a fence that had obviously been breached several times. But unlike so many other places we explore, the first three holes we discovered had been patched – in ways that were difficult to undo. One had a heavy rusted chain woven through the patching, another was sewn back together with thick metal cable. Oddly, the hole we finally found was the largest and closest to the building.

Security was watching the entrance to the empty plant and one of the cars we’d seen earlier was now gone. Obviously people were coming and going – not exactly what you want when you’re trying to sneak in somewhere. Slipping through the hole, we followed the fence line around behind a knoll to a thin treeline. It felt a little like a military maneuver and before the day was over that feeling would only increase. We ran, ducked down, from the fence line to behind a large aluminum structure a few feet away from the building we wanted to be inside. Between us and the building was the entry road to the plant; at the other end of the road stood the security booth.

“Let’s just make a run for it.” For some reason – I assume because we wanted to believe it – we thought we’d make it across the street without being seen. Just as we gathered up all our stuff again and prepared to make our run a pickup truck appeared on the road in front of us. Busted.

We fell back on our two middle-aged women with photo equipment position, with just a tad of honesty for zest. “We just want to take some photos of the outside of the building.” Yeah, yeah, that’s it. He asked if security knew we were there. “No, we snuck in,” came our sheepish reply. He considered himself for a brief moment and said “I never saw you.” Then he volunteered more information: a power outage in the city had brought a full crew to the working plant next door; he warned us not to go around to the other side of the building. We politely promised we wouldn’t and he drove off. Amazing.