The majority of what was once known as Georgia Power Company’s Plant Harllee Branch no longer stands on Lake Sinclair near the Baldwin-Putnam county line.

The reason: A sizable implosion, which reportedly could be felt from as far away as seven miles, brought large buildings and boilers down Saturday morning, as dozens of curious residents watched from the parking lot of Little River Marina Park on Lake Sinclair.

Only one portion of a building remains at the site, but it is expected to be taken to the ground sometime soon by heavy equipment operators.

The buildings that once stood there have now been reduced to tons of rubble.

Alan Haley, a real estate salesman with Lakeside Reality in Milledgeville, was one of those who witnessed the historical event.

Haley talked a little about what the plant had meant to him for the past four decades and what kind of impact he thought the plant not being there would have on the landscape.

“I grew up on Lake Sinclair, and the power plant has been a feature of my life for 40 years,” said Haley. “I hate to see it go, but if it’s got to go, I want to see it.”

Just last year, Haley witnessed the smokestack come down at the plant in a big explosion.

“It’s definitely going to change the landscape,” Haley said. “It’s sort of bittersweet.”

He called the smokestack event last year heart wrenching.

“It was just such a landmark,” Haley said. “It was a beacon when you were on the lake. You were able to find your way around pretty easily.”

Haley said when they closed the plant two years ago, he hated to see it because it meant more job losses in Baldwin and Putnam counties.

Three former employees at Plant Branch were among those who watched from a safe distance at Little River Marina Park in nearby Baldwin County, not far from where deputies with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office stopped motorists for safety reasons before the implosions. The same was true on the opposite side of the lake along U.S. Highway 441 where deputies with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office temporarily delayed motorists from their travels during the implosion of the plant’s boilers that came down in a thunderous series of explosions and caused huge dust clouds to descend from the site across the Baldwin County side of the lake.

The three former employees, two of whom are retired and one of who now works at Georgia Power Company’s Wallace Dam, included: Tim Williams, Robert Brake and George Hunter, all from Milledgeville.

“Everything went just like it was planned it looked like,” said Hunter, who worked at Plant Branch for 17 years. “They put a lot of effort and work into making this happen. The boiler areas were what they were after, and they got them down.”

Brake said he thought the implosion of the buildings “were pretty neat.”

Brake, who worked at Plant Branch for 35 years, now works at Wallace Dam.

“I think they did an excellent job,” said Williams, who worked at Plant Branch for 37 years. “I’m going to miss it, but nothing we can do about it except just go on from this point forward.”

All three men recalled some fond memories at the plant.

“I thought at first that a house had blown up around here,” said Ron Hurd, who lives on Lake Sinclair in Putnam County, about seven miles from where the plant explosions took place. “It blew, and it blew and it blew — three, four, or five blasts. It sounded like it was right around in this area. “

Hurd, a retired aircraft electrician with Delta Airlines in Atlanta, said he was at his granddaughter’s residence at the time of the implosions at the now-defunct coal energy producing plant that began operations in 1965 and existed through 2015 when Georgia Power Company officials ceased operations at the site.

“I jumped in my truck and drove around to see if I could see anything,” Hurd said, noting he later came back to his granddaughter’s residence.

Hurd said he decided to get on his computer and see if he could find out what had happened.

“I looked at Facebook to see what people had to say,” Hurd said. “They showed a video of the plant blowing up.”

Hurd said his wife had telephoned him earlier wanting to know what had happened, too. He said he told her later that they had blown up the old power plant.

“I just put two and two together and that’s how I knew,” Hurd said.

Teresa Davey, and her stepfather, Lonnie Sports, both of whom live on Lake Sinclair in Baldwin County, also talked about their many fond memories of the plant.

“My daughter called this morning about 7 to tell me that this was going to be going on,” Davey said. “I immediately got up and got ready and me and my stepfather headed in this direction. It’s a sad thing, because the power plant has always been real true to my heart. When we used to come from North Carolina to visit, we always knew that we were close to Milledgeville because we could see those smokestacks.”

Davey said her nephew would always tell her sister who still lives in Greensboro, N.C., “Now, we’re in Georgia,” when he laid eyes on the smokestacks that once stood tall at Plant Branch.

Sports said he and his stepdaughter were among the hundreds of people who came to the plant site last year to see the second and last of the smokestacks come down.

“I saw the first smokestack come down several years ago,” Sports said.

He echoed the sentiments of many other people.

“It’s been such a landmark for so many years here on Lake Sinclair,” Sports said. “We’re all going to miss seeing it, but we understand progress.”

Capt. Jeff Riddle, along with his son, Jarod Riddle, and Luke Corbin, were fishing on the lake at the time of the implosion of the plant buildings.

Riddle is a sophomore and Corbin is a freshman at Oconee High School in Watkinsville. The two were among dozens of high school students fishing in a tournament on the lake on Saturday when the majority of the buildings at Plant Branch imploded.

“We could feel the blasts well from where they were fishing,” said the elder Riddle. “It was really something.”