3 Killed in Explosion, Fire in Pasadena

A multi-agency team launched an investigation Friday into a freak explosion on a 4,000-volt power line that turned an underground electrical vault in Pasadena into a fiery coffin for three city workers and caused power failures in the city.

Thursday night’s blast knocked out power for more than eight hours to 230 homes in the San Rafael Hills, an exclusive neighborhood south of the Rose Bowl. Eight blocks surrounding the site of the explosion were without power most of Friday.

Killed in the blast were foreman Walter (Glenn) Wise, 50, of Temple City, a 29-year city veteran who had survived an underground explosion earlier in his career, and two cable splicers, Brian Miles, 36, of Pasadena, and Larry Hokenson, 38, of West Covina.

The three had been called to the 10-foot deep vault after an initial explosion in a 17,000-volt power line sparked a fire. After firefighters extinguished that blaze with carbon dioxide, the workers entered to make repairs. Then the second explosion, in the 4,000-volt line, occurred.

A fourth worker, electric power trouble-shooter Joe Armstrong of Sierra Madre, escaped injury in the blast because he had left moments before to get coffee for the others.

A three-man team from the California Occupational Health and Safety Administration was dispatched to the scene to determine if there were safety violations, said Isaac Chae, manager of the San Gabriel Valley district office.

Also joining the team are investigators from the environmental crimes/OSHA unit of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. The investigators are routinely called to the site of work-related fatalities, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Guthman said.

Morris Farkas, an investigator with the state Public Utilities Commission, said his office also was investigating the accident.

The investigators will try to determine if this week’s heat wave--with temperatures topping 100 degrees--caused an increase in consumption of electricity that might have overloaded the circuits and caused the explosion. Residents near the explosion site near San Rafael Avenue and La Loma Road reported seeing flickering lights for the last few nights.

“It’s possible that that could have been a contributing factor,” said David Plumb, general manager of the Pasadena Water and Power Department. But he said that electrical loads Thursday night in the neighborhood were not excessive.

Investigators will also examine the city’s safety procedures. Residents said that Miles and Hokenson appeared reluctant to enter the vault after the first explosion. But they ultimately descended into the charred vault and began making repairs next to three cables carrying 4,000 volts, 240 volts and 110 volts of electricity.

However, Plumb said, such a situation is typical for power workers.

“The men are trained to work in a hot, energized environment,” Plumb said.

Electric lines are not usually shut down unless they appear to be damaged or the insulation broken down, utility officials said. In Thursday’s blast, Wise would have followed department procedure and inspected the vault before ordering the other men in, Plumb said.

“The routine repairs are normally not hazardous, but any time you’re working with high-voltage electricity there is an element of danger,” Plumb said. “They did everything they were supposed to. . . . This was just a real freak incident.”

According to Pasadena fire and power officials, the power failure began at 8:15 p.m. when a 17,000-volt cable exploded and cut off electricity to 100 homes in a 20-block area, bounded by Maylin and Columbia streets and San Rafael and Fair Oaks avenues.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze with carbon dioxide and trouble-shooter Armstrong went to the site. After determining that an underground power crew was needed, Wise and his two cable splicers arrived to begin work.

The workers entered the vault and, between 10 and 10:30 p.m., the 4,000-volt line exploded, sending the manhole cover soaring and spewing flames 10 feet into the air. Power was cut off to 130 homes in a 30-block area bounded by San Rafael Avenue and the western city limit and Colorado Boulevard and La Loma Road.

Paramedics responding to the second explosion were prevented from immediately entering the vault because of electrical “arcing,” Plumb said. The power had to be shut off at a city electrical substation before the bodies could be removed.

The explosion was among the worst recorded by Pasadena’s Water and Power Department. In 1962, two workers died in a similar accident inside an electrical vault when a switch failed.

“In that case it was a switch, and this was a cable but the effect was the same--a ball of fire,” Plumb said.

Chae of Cal/OSHA said that a fire similar to the one Thursday night occurred about three years ago in Pasadena but no one was injured.

A vault accident also occurred about a week ago when a building owner asked city crews to shut off power, Plumb said. A switch fell off and an electrical arc burned up some of the equipment but no one was injured, he said.

Although a multi-agency team of investigators will try to find the cause of the accident in the next few days, Harold Jones, power distribution superintendent, believes the search may prove futile.

“We’ll never know,” he said Friday, pointing to a blackened pile of burned and shriveled cables. “Whatever it was is so destroyed we’ll never find out. And the ones who could tell us are no longer with us.”

Flags at Pasadena City Hall and at the city maintenance yard on West Mountain Street flew at half staff Friday.

At least a dozen Pasadena Department of Water and Power trucks, accompanied by 20 to 25 workers, were making repairs at the scene Friday. Workers were extracting blackened and charred remains of wires and casting them aside in the gutters. Jones said more than 300 feet of cable would have to be replaced.

Two union representatives from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18 were at the scene Friday to console the union members. The three dead workers were among 95 city workers who belong to the local, said Annemarie Galasso, a union business representative.

“Right now everybody is just kind of sad,” said union representative Alex Holzman. “We’re out here just to make sure that everybody is OK.”

Galasso said the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had offered assistance from its specialists who are experienced in helping workers and their families cope with the trauma that follows such an accident.

Meanwhile, Pasadena officials were arranging for emergency psychological counseling services for Armstrong and the families of the dead men. A memorial service will be scheduled next week.

Times staff writers Ben Sullivan, Berkley Hudson and Mike Ward contributed to this story.