Raccoon causes transformer explosion and power outage in downtown Hartford

What happened

On the night of Wednesday 27 March 2019, police received reports of a transformer explosion on Sheldon Street in downtown Hartford. The explosion left areas of downtown in darkness. Eversource reported 704 customers without power in the area immediately afterwards, and traffic lights were out at some junctions, where public works crews put up temporary signs. The city's mayor said the outage was caused when a raccoon came across the transformer, and that the animal did not survive. Power had been restored by the time of the updated report. The report does not describe the type of transformer, the damage to it, or whether anyone was injured.

Contributing factors

The mayor said a raccoon came across the transformer. The report gives no further detail on how the animal reached the equipment.

Lessons learned

1. Wildlife can reach distribution transformers and cause faults, so exposed bushings and conductors should be guarded where practicable.
2. An outage that takes out traffic signals creates a road safety risk, so utilities and city authorities should agree how junctions will be managed during downtown outages.
3. Recording where animal-related faults occur helps target guarding at locations with repeat contact.

More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Source

nbcconnecticut.com