Rain Brings Manhole Explosions

The rain—and winds—is here and so are manhole explosions. WABC 7 reports that "after Con Ed received reports of two manholes smoking" on the Upper West Side, the "covers went flying and flames shot" up around 4:30 a.m.

The explosions, which were caused by transformer fires, occurred on West 94th Street, and three vehicles were damaged, including one that caught fire (it may have been parked over a manhole). Melting snow—or heavy rainfall—can cause the fires when it mixes with salt used to melt snow and ice. Last month, a huge fireball was seen in Chelsea when a manhole exploded.

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By Jen Chung in News on March 13, 2010 9:02 AM

Comments [rss]

Tower18

This doesn't happen in any other major city with anywhere near the regularity that it happens here, including ones with infrastructure just as old. Why is that?

dr zippy

How do you know manhole explosions occur more frequently here? Do you have data for other cities?

Tower18

Nothing empirical, but I can say this for sure: if it's happening as frequently as here, it doesn't get in the press in other cities.

I've lived in a handful of large, old, northern cities (ie. those that get rain, snow, and use salt), and exploding manholes was not a topic I was familiar with until moving to New York.

If, as Con Ed asserts, it's simply caused by rain and snowmelt water mixing with salt and getting in the transformers, you'd think this would happen in any city with those conditions. But it doesn't appear to. In fact, I'd assert that New York is probably the only place where a 30ft fireball coming out of a manhole would be less than breaking news.