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With the second major underground fire in four years roaring last Friday -- spectacularly so, we might add -- Mayor Gavin Newsom wants some answers from PG&E. If you recall, in August 2005, an underground PG&E vault blaze occurred in the Financial District, critically injuring a passerby. That fire, according to CBS 5, "was caused by high levels of moisture in the oil inside the high-voltage chambers on the transformer." A follow-up investigation reveals that five additional transformers within in San Francisco "had high moisture levels" as well. Anyway, Newsom claims to be unhinged by last week's manhole blaze, saying. "I've been at this a lot as mayor of San Francisco, some more problematic events, not just this event. We'll work through them." PG&E promises a thorough investigation. Polk Street at O'Farrell remains closed for investigation.
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>> Polk Street between Van Ness and Larkin remains closed for investigation.
This is kind of confusing. Surely you don't mean ALL of Polk Stree is closed?
Transformer oil can and should be periodically sampled and tested for this sort of thing. Where's the PG&E preventative maintenance?
MtM
they probably cut the budget for that like they did with tree trimming.
Didn't this happen twice before in the past couple of years with someone getting injured too?
Yes, this same thing happened in 2005 at Post and Kearny, in the Financial District. A woman was badly burned and won a major settlement from the city.
I was about 1/4 block from this explosion, walking with a co-worker. I timed it later and we were about 30 seconds away from being right there. I can still picture the woman who was burned. Pretty horrifying. I think I heard that she actually recovered pretty well but I don't know that for sure. I'd love to hear any good news on that if anyone knows.
got me all excited with that pic thinking it was a riot