A pair of explosions in downtown Albany early this morning blew off manhole covers, shattered windows and rattled residents near the intersection of Henry Johnson Boulevard and State Street.
According to National Grid, two manhole covers were blown off overnight after an underground transformer fire in Albany. Mayor Kathy Sheehan says residents of several buildings were evacuated due to carbon monoxide and smoke concerns. "The largest building being 399 State Street which is on the basically east corner of Henry Johnson Boulevard and State Street. That is a 66-unit building. The residents of that building were evacuated for roughly two hours."
The residents had to leave again after that building lost power. Service has since been restored. "We know that of those buildings we have a total of eight structures. One of those structures is vacant, one of those is property that is owned by the State University."
Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins says residents were quite alarmed and flooded the police switchboard with calls. "From the police perspective we were dealing with a lot of traffic-related issues and you know making sure that we helped with fire department and National Grid with road closures and also doing a canvass of the buildings that were evacuated to make sure that property was preserved and that we didn't have folks who were going in and potentially taking advantage of the situation."
National Grid’s Peter Altenburger says electrical arcing caused the fire. Repairs near the intersection could take up to 24 hours. Some customers will be without power for an undetermined amount of time. "We're starting from State Street and working our way toward Washington Park. So we already got the Ten Broeck building back up and we'll just keep working. Customers will be out for an extended period closer to Washington Park. We've hired an electrical contractor to go in and start installing generators at those homes."
Albany fire officials say concussion from the blast blew out windows in buildings and damaged two cars parked in the vicinity.
Sheehan says no one is certain exactly what happened underground and what other infrastructure may have been compromised. "Our water department is going in and scoping its lines to ensure that there was no damage to the pipe."
State Street from Sprague Place to Willett Street was closed to all traffic. Henry Johnson Boulevard from Washington Avenue to Washington Park was also closed.
Officials say motorists should avoid the area. They concede crews will be in the neighborhood "for quite some time."
