18-year-old plunges 50 feet to his death at abandoned power plant, New Orleans cops say
An 18-year-old died from blunt force trauma after falling 50 feet inside an abandoned power plant in New Orleans, officials said.
Anthony Clawson and his friends climbed to the roof of the old Market Street Power Plant late Friday, July 29, to watch the sun set over the Mississippi River, according to the New Orleans Advocate. The group was on their way down when Clawson stepped on a broken platform, causing the floor under him to give way.
“I saw him get swallowed up from the ground in front of me,” Noah Cieutat, a friend of Clawson’s, told the newspaper. “I couldn’t move for what felt like a minute.”
Officers were alerted to a “medical incident” at the plant just after 9 p.m., New Orleans police said in a news release. The victim was taken to a hospital for treatment for injuries he suffered from a “fall of approximately 50 feet.”
No one else was hurt.
“Investigation into the incident remains open,” authorities said. “We do not have any further information at this time.”
Clawson died from his injuries on Saturday, July 30, according to the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office.
The honor student and recent Ben Franklin High School graduate was slated to attend Louisiana State University, where he planned to study chemistry, school spokesperson Eve Peyton told McClatchy News in a statement.
“Tony was a wonderful, kind student who was just about to start at LSU and had a bright future ahead of him,” Peyton said, adding that the community is “shocked and devastated” by his loss. “We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends.”
The abandoned power plant was originally built in 1902 and is made up of seven separate buildings sprawled over “160,000-square-feet of developable floor space” and vacant land, according to Biz New Orleans. The property was sold to Market Street Properties LLC for $10 million in 2007 before being sold again to a developer in 2015, WVUE reported.
There were plans to redevelop the space into a residential, retail and entertainment hub, but it never happened, according to the news station.
Finally a group of developers closed on a deal to invest in the crumbling property and surrounding land, Biz New Orleans reported in February.
The abandoned building and other blighted properties in the area have sparked safety concerns among some residents, according to WVUE and the New Orleans Advocate. By law, city officials said owners of these vacant sites are responsible for securing them.
This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 4:08 PM.