ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WSVN) — Researchers at the University of South Florida are trying to recover years of scientific work after a crack of lightning sparked a fire that destroyed a lab building on campus last month.
Officials later determined a lightning strike ignited the fire that destroyed the marine science lab building at the USF campus in St. Petersburg. The fierce flames quickly engulfed the building.
“The roof of the building was wooden, So it spread really quickly across the wooden roof of the fire,” said USF College of Marine Science professor Steven Murawski.
Murawski, along with other professors in the College of Marine Science, said the fire destroyed years worth of research and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment.
“Things like sonar data that we use for mapping. Those vehicles were largely destroyed,” said Murawski.
In the month since the fire happened, Murawski said more than 150 people have had to pivot their work and research to alternate locations.
“Buildings like National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA is going to accommodate me and my students and others,” said Murawski. “The St. Petersburg Innovation District has a building called The Hub, and the people at The Hub have taken some of our people as well.”
While the fire caused extensive damage to the lab building, Murawski said most of his research was salvaged. It’s been moved to a cold storage unit and multiple trailers in the parking lot.
Other researchers weren’t as fortunate, with some having to go back out to collect new samples.
In some cases, those samples are far from easy to replace.
“It’s one thing to collect them from Tampa Bay, but we have samples from Antarctica,” said Murawski.
Murawski said they’re still waiting to determine whether the building will need to be torn down.
“Our real road block now is getting back to getting the instruments we need in order to analyze those samples. And it’s pretty critical, because a lot of these samples are being collected on relatively large grants by the federal government,” said Murawski.
If the structure is salvageable, Murawski said it will likely still take years before researchers can resume their work inside.
Several professors from USF said members of the community have stepped up in a big way to offer support, raising more than $500,000 for the recovery efforts.
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