Bronx transformer fire cuts power to apartment building in Morris Park

What happened

During a heat wave, a utility transformer on Eastchester Road in the Morris Park section of the Bronx, New York, failed and caught fire on Wednesday evening. Residents reported hearing a crackling sound followed by a loud bang before the unit exploded, with burning debris reported to have fallen onto two parked cars. The failure knocked out power to a seven-story apartment building housing 71 families, along with some traffic lights and a few nearby homes and businesses.

The building lost water service along with electricity. Con Edison crews responded to remove the damaged transformer and replace the burned utility pole, working overnight in extreme heat and humidity to restore service. Injuries were not reported in the available source. The outage was one of several affecting the utility's service area during the heat wave, which also strained the grid and prompted voltage reductions elsewhere.

Contributing factors

The transformer failure occurred during a sustained heat wave, which Con Edison said was causing increased strain across its electrical system and additional outages in other areas.

Lessons learned

1. A pole-mounted transformer fire can throw burning debris onto nearby cars, so operators should clear vegetation and enforce vehicle exclusion zones around such units.
2. Sustained heat waves raise load on distribution transformers and can trigger sudden failures, so utilities must increase monitoring and voltage reductions in advance.

More lessons on maintenance, inspection and ageing assets, detection and monitoring, from every incident on the register.

Not yet known

• Age and model of the failed transformer
• Exact cause of the failure
• Duration and cost of the outage

This entry is updated when these are reported. Get an alert for the next one like it.

Source

abc7ny.com