KYW Newsradio Team Coverage
It was back to work Friday for thousands in Center City who had been evacuated Thursday afternoon after a dangerous underground explosion.
Philadelphia firefighters battled an underground fire for hours Thursday that resulted from an electrical explosion on South 15th Street near Chestnut Street.
KYW's Michelle Durham reports while Philadelphia police and fire officials responded to the explosion on South 15th Street, Peco officials not only worked with the fire department to battle the blaze, but also investigated the cause of the explosion.
What touched off the explosion and fire in the first place? Peco spokesperson Mike Wood says an underground cable fault problem that started Thursday morning became more complicated by a mistake.
"There were three customers all of which will served by two distinct underground feeds. one of which failed. one of the customers tried switch over to their second feed, and when they did they wound up switching all of their electrical load for that building into the defective cable instead of the good one."
The resulting explosion and fire caused massive evacuations and detoured inbound SEPTA bus routes for several hours .
KYW's Mike Dunn reports that because of the underground fire, police closed off streets for several hours in a 36-square-block area. North-south streets were closed between 13th and 18th, and east-west streets were closed between Walnut and Vine.
About 3:30pm, most of those streets -- except those in the immediate area of 15th and Ranstead Streets -- were reopened to traffic. However, massive residual traffic jams were expected to remain throughout center city for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.
The Broad Street off-ramp from the Vine Street expressway was also closed for several hours.
KYW's Mark Abrams reports on some of the workers who fled from their Center City offices.
Donna of Germantown was among the five-thousand to flee high-rise office buildings in Center City. She was on the 26th floor of the Centre Square Building at 1500 Market Street.
"Just a bang and everybody left. Yes.
Abrams: "Pretty fast?"
Pretty fast.
Abrams: "You didn't even think?"
"No!"
Abrams: "Just grabbed your purse?"
"That's it."
Abrams: "What did you think when you heard the bang?"
"Of course everybody thought about 9-11. I did. I didn't know what was going on until I left."
Donna says once she learned it was an underground explosion in a PECO installation. She felt a little relieved, but she was still shaken by the entire experience.
Philadelphia fire commissioner Lloyd Ayers said the responding firefighters first saw flames rising from four or five manholes whose covers were blown off near 15th and Ranstead. Thousands of workers from several nearby buildings, including 1500 Market Street, were evacuated. At that point, Ayers says, many employers gave their workers the rest of the day off.
Colin McNeill works in a building nearby:
"I was in the Grand Building, at 30 South 15th Street, and I heard a very large explosion. At first I thought there was a construction problem -- the building is under renovation on several floors -- and then I smelled smoke, so I told the people in my office that we should evacuate."
Nearby streets were closed. SEPTA officials warned that there would be detours of bus routes in the area while the investigation continued.
Underground parking garages in the immediate area of the fire were also off-limits to customers trying to retrieve their cars. Commissioner Ayers said things would remain that way until the fire was fully extinguished.
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