Explosion, Brief Fire Damage Electrical Vault
An explosion and fire Monday in an underground electrical vault in downtown Los Angeles knocked out power for several hours in lines that supply 34 buildings.
No injuries were reported in the 9:06 a.m. incident at 424 S. Grand Ave., said city Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Dorothy Jensen. “There was a problem on 34,500-volt lines feeding downtown,” Jensen said. The cause of the explosion and brief fire is under investigation.
Most of the buildings affected were along Wilshire Boulevard, and most have dual-line systems, so their electrical service was uninterrupted, Jensen said. Some of the buildings had to switch to backup generators. By 1 p.m., power had been restored to all but one of the buildings. Earlier Monday, another power outage in downtown Los Angeles interrupted service to about 34,000 customers, but only for about five minutes. The outage, reported at 5:39 a.m., was caused by a failure in a switching station, Jensen said.
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