Underground Fire Causing Power Outages Around City

Three hundred and thirty five Connecticut Light and Power customers lost power Friday afternoon, mostly concentrated in the downtown area, after underground high-voltage electric lines on Grand Street caught fire.

"We have an underground vault burning, which is right now causing sporatic power outages throughout the city," says Middletown Fire Deputy Chief Kronenberger. "We’ve got [Route] 9, Harbor Park out — those are without power — but Main Street has power."

was called Grand Street about 3:45 p.m. on the report of a smoking manhole cover that witnesses said hit the bottom of a parked car, damaging its radiator.

When officers and firefighters first arrived on scene, there was brown smoke coming from the man hole. “Once those wires start burning they deliver a lot of smoke,” Kronenberger said.

Sisters Michele and Dawn Foye had a big scare when they heard a loud explosion under Michele’s car parked in front Dawn’s apartment at 164 Grand Street and saw the radiator had been damaged.

“I was parked right there,” Michele said. “I came out and I thought it was my engine that just blew up. My heart is still beating. I was terrified. I even called my mechanic and said the engine exploded or something.

As she spoke, the purple 1997 Pontiac Grand Am parked just behind the open manhole was leaking fluids from its undercarriage. “The thing popped up, now the radiator is leaking,” Dawn said.

By 5:20 p.m., CL&P had restored electricity to all affected homes and businesses.

After talking with the lieutenant on scene, Kronenberger questioned whether the manhole had "exploded."

“He said if that manhole cover had come off, what are the odds of it going back down on exactly where it was and then having to be pried off?" he said.

When CL&P technicians arrived on scene, Kronenberger said, “it took two sizable pry bars to try and get that manhole cover off. With the car parked over it, luckily no one was in it, so nobody got hurt.”

"The funny thing is the houses on Green Street [never lost] power," he said. However, Forest City Wine and Spirits in the North End was experiencing an interruption in its Internet service and lights were going on and off at the same time of the 911 call.

"We’ve had issues like this with vaults before," Kronenberger explained. "I’ll equate it to if a transformer on a pole blows, you end up with pretty sizable, loud explosion but everything is pretty contained to that transformer."

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