Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Defective cables cause frightening explosions


From CBS 2:

A series of manhole explosions rocked a Queens neighborhood Monday, damaging several cars parked cars and leaving dozens without power.

Just before 11 p.m., an electrical fire shot blue flames out of a manhole on Queens Boulevard between 67th and 68th avenues in Forest Hills.

Some people who live nearby captured one of the blasts on video. In a matter of minutes, two more explosions sent smoke billowing into the air.

Con Edison officials told CBS2 the blasts were caused by defective cables underground.

“Then all of a sudden I saw huge pieces, I couldn’t tell if they were — if they were metal or concrete, but I saw three huge pieces fly,” said Ben Benyamin.

That airborne debris landed on parked cars, cracking windshields and crushing hoods. It took the FDNY nearly two hours to extinguish the raging flames underground.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coned sucks. They charge the highest rates then they don't even know how to take care of their crap. They are truly the worse.

Anonymous said...

"Con Edison officials told CBS2 the blasts were caused by defective cables underground."

More bullshit, this is what happens when you put additional money from rate increases into pay raises for executive staff rather than maintenance.

Queens cables haven't had proper maintenance in more than thirty years..

Edison chooses to do emergency repairs rather than maintain

Anonymous said...

"Con Edison officials told CBS2 the blasts were caused by defective cables underground."

More bullshit, this is what happens when you put additional money from rate increases into pay raises for executive staff rather than maintenance.

Queens cables haven't had proper maintenance in more than thirty years..

Edison chooses to do emergency repairs rather than maintain

JQ LLC said...

And they are doing more tower development in that area too.

It looks like it's getting mighty crowded in forest hills. Not only is there stinginess and neglect of infrastructure and safety on the part of ConEd, but maybe it's from an influx of new residents in the area and the cables can't handle the load.

Anonymous said...

Gas lines were just replaced in that area too. A miracle there were no major catastrophic explosions.

Anonymous said...

It's more like damage from all the salt recently put down.

AmyB said...

The same thing happened in Sunnyside about 10 days ago. It happened up on Utopia Parkway (a much smaller event) in early January. Perhaps all of the uncontrolled development, without upgrading the infrastructure first, is partly to blame.

Anonymous said...

Man that was a big explosion, I live in Maspeth and it was scary loud, my cats and dog all were startled.

Anonymous said...

Overdevelopment with old electrical wiring, plus salt applied during winter storms , are the culprit.