LEWISTON — A series of blasts rocked a section of the downtown Friday afternoon when an underground power vault blew and caught fire on Park Street just before 4 p.m.
Patti Neff, who lives at Oak Park Apartments across the street from the scene of the blasts, said she heard four explosions as the lights in her apartment flickered on and off.
“The first explosion scared me and brought me right up out of my seat,” she said. “The lights went off and then back on. Off and then on and then back off for good.”
The underground vault that failed houses electrical components beneath the sidewalk in front of 37 Park St., the backside of the Redemption Hill missionary church.
Nobody was hurt, fire officials said, but the cause of the blast was unknown. Central Maine Power crews were expected to be at work repairing the damage for the rest of the day.
The first firefighters on scene quickly advised police to block off a section of Park Street between Main and Oak streets. They barricaded the area and called for help from Central Maine Power, which manages the underground electrical system.
Mark Fye, also a tenant at Oak Park Apartments, said he was looking out his window when it all went down.
“There were three bangs and then some big flames shooting up out of there,” he said. “After that, it was mainly a lot of smoke.”
John Painter, who works at Oak Park Apartments, said he was in his office when he heard at least three explosions. He was close enough to the blasts that he could feel them, he said. The lights flickered on and off for a while before going off completely.
When he got outside, Painter said, smoke was drifting across the whole block at Park and Oak streets.
An hour after the explosions, power remained out for much of Park Street and for some businesses on Lisbon Street.
Mike Neff, another tenant at Oak Park, was grateful for the timing — he had just stepped off the elevator before the power went out throughout the building.
Central Maine Power spokesman Dustin Wlodkowski said that, while witnesses described the sounds as “explosions,” the blasts below the street were likely not as dramatic as they sounded from above.
“Because the transformer and associated equipment is located underground,” he said, “the sound was amplified and may have startled those nearby.”
As fire and power company crews worked on Park Street, a group of tenants from Oak Park Apartments huddled in the shade beneath some trees in front of the apartment building. With the power out inside, it turned into a sort of social affair as supper time approached.
“So much for white chicken chili,” said Patti Neff. Her neighbor had made enough of the dish for everybody, but with the power out it was not expected to stay warm inside a crock pot.
By 7 p.m., roughly 116 CMP customers were without power, most of them in the area of the blown equipment. There was no estimation as to when power would be restored.
