SALISBURY — The loud noise heard coming from Duke Energy’s Buck Combined Cycle Station on Thursday morning was not an explosion, a spokesperson for the company said.

“There was no explosion,” Duke Energy Communications Manager Heather Danenhower said.

While a “big noise” was produced by the 620-megawatt natural gas facility, Danenhower said that it was related to bringing the facility back online after an outage.

“All plant systems are operating safely and as designed,” Danenhower said. “The Buck Combined Cycle Station was in a planned outage, and the noise plant neighbors heard this morning was related to bringing the plant back online. We apologize to plant neighbors if the noise was startling or an inconvenience.”

No injuries were reported since the procedure was conducted safely and routinely.

Danenhower said that Duke is working to calm fears that were stoked by the spread of false information about the noise on social media. 

“We think there was some false information posted on Facebook and we’re going to reach out to the owner of that information just so that they have the same information,” Danenhower said.

More information about Duke Energy’s Buck Combined Cycle Station can be found online at www.duke-energy.com.