THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601150173
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Earl Swift and Steve Stone, Staff writers
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
A series of underground explosions ripped through an electrical power network beneath downtown Sunday, forcing officials to switch off the juice to most of the business district and prompting the evacuation of the city's biggest hotel.
The blasts, which began at about 12:30 p.m., left a jagged hole at Main and Atlantic streets, lobbed a manhole cover dozens of feet and shot flames and acrid smoke into the air. Police on loudspeakers urged pedestrians out of the area. No one was hurt by the explosions, the cause of which remained unclear Sunday night.
Power was restored to some blocks by early evening. Some downtown buildings - including the Dominion Tower, Waterside, Nauticus, the Royster and Federal buildings, the World Trade Center and the Omni - had power by 7 p.m.
But Virginia Power spokesmen said some parts of Norfolk's nerve center might be left in the dark until sometime today.
``We're looking at most if it coming back up, hopefully by midnight,'' said Kathy Bulman, a city spokeswoman, said Sunday evening. ``Eighty percent, anyway.''
She said hopes are that all the major bank and office towers will have service by this morning, although expectations are that the Marriott and several buildings between Martins Lane and Atlantic Street will still be without power.
``That's optimistic,'' said Ronald T. Wakeham, city's director of fire and parademical services.
Among the buildings without power at nightfall were the packed City Jail, the Union Mission and all but a handful of office buildings. By afternoon's end, the Waterside Marriott Hotel had been emptied and downtown's streets were eerily dusky.
``This is a very complicated, very intricate system that feeds downtown Norfolk,'' said Allen B. Hartman, Virginia Power's district manager. ``It's extremely reliable in terms of service continuity, but this sort of thing is not unheard of.
``Obviously, today is not one of our good days.''
Four large explosions apparently followed a fire in a conduit under Main Street, part of a network of pipes that carries power lines throughout downtown.
The first explosion ripped a crater into the sidewalk outside the Marriott's ground-floor pub, flipping a thick concrete apron that had ringed a manhole.
A Marriott supervisor in the hotel's restaurant, two floors above the explosion, thought a truck had slammed into the building. Thomas Cunningham, a ``Phantom of the Opera'' cast member staying at the Marriott, thought a piece of the roof had fallen into the street.
A block away, at the Selden Arcade, customers ran from Yorgo's Bageldashery at the sound of the blast. ``We looked to see what part of the Marriott had fallen,'' said George Kapos, the restaurant's owner. ``That's what we thought had happened, that the hotel had collapsed.''
Said Virginia Powers's Hartman, ``It was probably, originally, an electrical fault,'' ``A lot of combustible gases can collect under there - not natural gas, just sewer gasses and other gasses that seep in.''
Norfolk fire officials said methane often builds in man-made caverns such as the power grid's manhole enclosures. The gas is highly flammable.
``So it was probably electrically started,'' Hartman said, ``and gas-fed.''
That was not yet clear at 1:44 p.m., when police and firefighters had cordoned off the intersection but were still seeking an explanation for the first blast. Suddenly, a second explosion blew the lid from a manhole a few yards away.
At about 2:15 p.m. the gray-green smoke wisping from the hole turned an ominous black, and orange flames peeked over the manhole's lip. A rat-a-tat of small pops and loud grinding echoed up from below.
But these noises prepared no one for what followed. At 2:20 p.m., a third, far more powerful explosion tore from the hole, reverberating through the surrounding canyon of office towers and sending skyward a sheet of flame and black smoke.
Norfolk City Manager James B. Oliver Jr., called to the scene with Assistant City Manager Darlene L. Burcham, jumped for cover in the midst of a conversation, and some pedestrians along Main Street sprinted from the scene.
Little more than a minute later, a final blast rocked the area.
``Geez, now I am going to have a manhole cover coming to visit me in my room,'' Marriott guest Jeffrey Wondsel said as he dashed into the hotel.
Matthew Smith, a baker at a Schlotzky's Sandwich Shop just yards from the manhole, was flushed from the business by police and didn't have time to pull on his coat until he had run several hundred feet.
Police in a squad car blocking Main Street urged the curious to leave, repeating over their loudspeaker: ``Head for Boush Street! Head for Boush Street!''
``On that last blast, I was looking at the Cenit Bank building and when you heard the explosion, you could actually see all the windows swaying,'' said Jack Goldhorn of the Norfolk Fire Department.
Meanwhile, Virginia Power, unable to determine how widespread the fire had become, switched off power to downtown at about 2:40 p.m.
Power workers, fire officials and city leaders set up an emergency center in the Marriott's lobby, even as hotel general manager Daniel Marone decided to shut down the business for the night.
``We have no lights in the guest rooms and no heat,'' Marone said as some of the hotel's 166 guests lugged their baggage toward the exits. Most had a commute ahead because nearby hotels also lacked power. The Omni International Hotel, a block away, was also powerless at the time, as was the Ramada Madison Hotel on Granby Street.
Across downtown, The Virginian-Pilot's offices were without electricity for the first time in memory, forcing the newspaper to publish an abbreviated edition from its Virginia Beach bureau. WTKR-TV Channel 3 was knocked off the air, as were at least two radio stations.
Virginia Power's Hartman said late Sunday afternoon that it might be 12 to 24 hours before service was restored: The fire had left conduits and manholes filled with smoke and dangerous gasses, and those had to be removed before the utility's repair crews could assess the damage. MEMO: Staff writers Larry W. Brown and Scott Harper contributed to this
article.
ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by Martin Smith-Rodden\The Virginian-Pilot
Electricity was turned off Sunday in downtown Norfolk so that
emergency workers could contain the fire underground. Power is
expected to be restored to the area today. The view from Portsmouth
showed the darkened skyline.
Color staff photo by Vicki Cronis\The Virginian-Pilot
Firefighters at Main and Atlantic streets in downtown Norfolk wait
to approach a smoking manhole after one of four blasts Sunday.
KEYWORDS: POWER OUTAGE EXPLOSION NATURAL GAS BLACKOUT by CNB