Posted on 11/20/2006 11:49:40 AM PST by Silicon Cowboy
Underground Blasts Hit Downtown Sacramento Power Out At City Hall, Worker Reports
POSTED: 11:27 am PST November 20, 2006 UPDATED: 11:38 am PST November 20, 2006
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A series of underground explosions caused some power outages and traffic problems in downtown Sacramento Monday morning.
The first blast was reported in the area of Seventh and H streets shortly before 10 a.m.
Sacramento firefighters, light rail workers and Sacramento Municipal Utility District officials were at the scene investigating a possible electrical fire.
Power was out at City Hall and at least one other building, officials reported.
It was not immediately clear if there were any injuries resulting from the blasts.
For more details, watch KCRA 3 Reports at noon on television and streaming live on kcra.com.
Very close to the Superior Court building & the DA's office...
...and the old Railroad Yard where the Las Vegas Maloof brothers wanted to build a new arena for the Kings if the taxpayers would go along with a 1/4% hike in the Sales Tax (that Measure lost by 80% to 20% as I recall)...
They sure do, and very violently. I've seen it happen. Electricity and transformers aren't the same thing, Ben. I'm not aware of any occasions when they did so en mass, however, and the article describes a series of explosions. That's just my two cents, I'm not trying to argue with anyone.
Oil-filled power transformers, probably - another casualty of the rabid anti-cancer movement that caused the elimination of non-flammable PCB coolants for transformers.
The Mole People are coming!
How do you report a power outage when the power is out?
Of course if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction....
Check out these articles in the (I know) NYT. Rarely is a transformer referred to.
I do underground utility infrastrucure construction, as well as heavy & highway construction, for a living.
Like I said, an arc inside a manhole can be called an explosion, although technically i't not a tru explosion.
I'm not arguing, either, jsut trying to explain it.
Also, sticking power cables underground where heat dissipation becomes a serious problem in anything bigger than a 115 kv line, and even those are susceptible.
Actually yes, a large power line can cause a tremendous explosion.
Forgot the link: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/explosions/index.html?query=MANHOLES&field=des&match=exact
A 480volt 3 phase motor control box can arc over, it sounds like a concussion grenade and blows itself off the wall. All an explosion is normally is a rapid release of energy due to burning something. A High volt arc over does the same thing.
I saw a motor control room that blew at a log mill I worked in, heard it really and came running. Sounded like a couple of sticks of dynamite. Some idiot had replaced the mains with cut pieces of copper pipe and forgot to replace the fuses later. When it arced over, the flash burned through a 6x6 3/4 of the way in a half a second. The fire was out in less that 20 seconds due to a quick worker with an extinguisher.
The beam looked like it had been in a campfire for an hour. We ended up rebuilding and rewiring the whole room.
Lousey way to save a buck... But the explosion was awsome.
480 would be phase to phase. I can hardly believe someone other than myself would be brave and/or stupid enough to bypass the fuses. I hope nobody was injured.
Hence, Michael Moore...
Very interesting map....
"Actually electricity does blow up. Overloaded transformers full of oil heat up and explode in balls of fire."
Yup...transformers blow up real nice and purty!
If Al Qaida IS covering Sacramento in their courses along the Afghan-Pakistan border, then it is ill-advised...their curriculum would certainly be of more depth & sophistication if it moved on to some more promising, urban area than 7th & G....
Probably just someone lengthening the Grand Canyon tunnels.
I'm certain the rats will cover this up and blame it on the other "party".....the party they will never attend and that
party is reality.
Nothing hmmm. The excremists would have gone for the fatalities, not for the power lines. Must be some accident.
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