Exploding Manholes Of Midtown

Not much on my mind right now, but it's not important. I've just been letting everything happen without me. I just don't have anything to say right now.

Given that ConEd spent the summer electrocuting people and animals and now they seem content to spend the fall vaulting metal stories high into the air I really wouldn't mind seeing them regulated by the local gov.

Never mind the fact that they're essentially a monopoly on top of being lethally incompetent.

Incidentally one of the metal plates that exploded hit a bus which in turn hit a car. I haven't seen that mentioned in any of the articles after the fact. Maybe that's how some of the injuries happened?

This happened in my neighborhood twice last winter/spring (181st and Ft. Washington)-- at least one of them was caused by faulty wiring (I think).

Huge explosion, then fire trucks and noisy chaos (first one was during ER one Thursday night).

It was scary.

i experienced an exploding manhole last year on 52nd & Broadway...i was inside working, but it shook the whole building

Gee, another heartwarming ConEd story.

I had the unfortunate pleasure to be standing across the street when the manhole blew on third ave near Gramercy Park several years ago. This was pre-9/11 but still some fucked up shit. That and the fact that it was later anounced that the pipe that exploded was wrapped in asbestos. Cough cough.

more on the scene photos at meccapixel.com...

When living in Astoria, QNS, I had the pleasure of having such an experience as the aforementioned. It happened about 30 feet from my apartment window. We had a series of explosions (3 to be exact). Btw, there is nothing scarier then seeing firemen run from a scene (which was about at explosion 2).

I was told happened by a ConEd employee that this happens when a gas buildup happens underneath the street when the rubber sheathing around the wires begins to melt (they didn't explain why it would melt, but i digress) and gives off a combustible gas. The gas builds up, it then explodes, and such a spectacle is created. On our street we had a sealed manhole.

Sounds like the problems they had in baltimore on Monday :

http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20040920-111426-6516r.htm

Rosweed, "D" is refering to the layers of epoxy that have been applied to the steam manhole covers in an effort to reduce the possibility of someone getting burned by an overheated manhole cover....it has NOTHING to do with the Republicans...geez you can't blame them for everything!

Yet another case of the deadly terror group In Competence being more lethal then Al Kaline or even Al Qaeda.

D - The sealed manholes are a remnant of the Republican convention.

errikka - You're right. The entire electrical system beneath Manhattan is a mess. Ask anybody who has to work on it. You know those big silver tanks containing liquid nitrogen you see on curbs all over the city? The little hose is pumping liquid nitrogen down into the manhole to keep everything from overheating. If Con Ed ever ran out of liquid nitrogen Manhattan would be like a bag of Jiffy Pop.

actualy they do know - they said on the telly it was a transformer-related thing. but they didn't explain how an electrical device would send flames shooting 10 feet into the air, as i saw on the news. reminds me of the woman with the manhole burn...

Whenever something of this nature occurs and Con Ed is linked, you can be sure of two things:

1) they don't know the cause

2) they are "investigating"

Then...it just disappears until someone gets hurt again.

There was a similar explosion a month or two ago on 17th St. between 5th Ave. and Union Sq. West (except there happened to be a car sitting on top of it). Has anyone noticed steaming hot manholes around the city covered in some sort of epoxy? Seems like they're just waiting to explode...I try to avoid walking on them in fear of getting shot into the air. Seems doubtful that ConEd doesn't know what the problem is...