As students wandered around a campus without electricity on Friday, and visiting parents changed their weekend plans to deal with altered activities, flames were shooting out of manholes less than a mile from campus. Businesses closed, traffic was disrupted and thousands in Medford were left without power.
Two manhole explosions on Friday shut down for two and a half hours an area known as Cavanaugh Square, located at the intersection of Main Street and Mystic Avenue near Medford Square and the Mystic Valley Parkway (Route 16) overpass.
An underground fire in utility tunnels caused the explosions and knocked out power for about 7,000 National Grid customers in south Medford and Hillside, as well as much of Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus.
The flames caused a manhole to blow at 95 Main Street at around 10 a.m., according to Capt. Tom Brennan of the Medford Fire Department. As firefighters evacuated the area and shut down traffic on Main Street, Mystic Avenue and Route 16, another manhole a block away exploded 40 feet into the air, he said.
"It sounded like something had come in and crashed into the building," said Gary Conserva, who was in his store, Broadway Piano Exchange, at the time of the first explosion. The store is located on the same block as the second manhole that went into the air.
Firefighters proceeded to remove other manholes and control a third fire, in which 10-foot flames emerged from a manhole on Main Street, according to Brennan.
No injuries were reported, Brennan said. Both explosions occurred within a couple of blocks of the fire department's headquarters, facilitating a rapid response from firefighters.
"We're very fortunate," Brennan said of the location.
An office building largely made up of medical offices stood less than a block from the first explosion. When power went out shortly after the fires began, workers tried to save tens of thousands of vials of seasonal flu vaccination which had to be refrigerated, according to building manager Paul Larkin.
The fire department asked the building's tenants to leave at around 10:15 a.m., Larkin said.
"I ran through every unit and got people out," he said. "The reason why they had us abandon the building was because they were scared of the fire feeding into it."
The fire department's evacuation was slightly problematic for tenants of the building, located at 101 Main Street, as patients who come to see doctors and clinicians often have disabilities that limit their mobility, according to Larkin.
"We have a lot of people [with] walking problems," Larkin said, adding that some people were in the middle of minor oral surgery at the time.
But everyone made it out safely and area hospitals stored the flu vaccine vials, said Larkin, who unlocked the building for tenants the next morning.
Streets reopened at around 12:30 p.m., but periodic closures have occurred in the area as technicians work in manholes there.
The city made Medford High School available as a shelter for those who had lost heat because of the fires, and the Medford Hyatt on Friday night provided rooms at a discounted rate for those still without electricity.
All affected National Grid customers regained power by Saturday afternoon. At Tufts, electricity returned at around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Approximately 20 Medford firefighters, 20 Medford police officers and 10 emergency medical technicians responded to the fires, according to Brennan. Because the blaze was electrical in nature, firefighters could not use water and had to wait for it to burn out itself.
Brennan said manhole explosions come rarely. "It's not common, but we've had a few of them here in the city," he said.
