On August 21, 2025 at about 9:30 am I noticed the lights in
our apartment were flickering.
When I looked out the window, I saw a fire engine below and
when I looked south, I saw why. Yikes.
Sadly, transformer fires are fairly common in New York these
days. Our infrastructure is old.
But this particular corner received plenty of attention
during the construction of the second avenue subway, so I was surprised to hear
that tree roots had wrapped around the wires.
Here are some photos of that construction. But I realize now that they are 13
years old. So, the root problem makes a
bit more sense. Still, I wonder if it
was the deluge the night before that caused the fire.
https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/06/second-avenue-subway-part-1.html
Here’s another blog about the construction.
https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/06/2nd-avenue-subway-part-2.html
As I mentioned the FDNY was on the scene in no time.
But as it turns out, the fire department is not allowed to do
anything until Con Ed arrives. That’s
probably a good idea. There might be stuff down there that does not react well
to water.
At 12:30 pm we were informed that our power would be turned
off so repairs could proceed and might not be restored for 24 hours or more.
I’m not sure why we didn’t head to a hotel like our smarter
neighbors, but we had water and candles, so we decided to hang in there.
When we lost our water at 8:00 pm I realized that we had
probably made a mistake.
At 9:00 pm the drilling started. It went on until about 10:30 pm.
It’s hard to believe that all this concrete,
came from this small section of sidewalk and street.
At 3:00 am our power was restored! Thank you, Con Ed!!!
Ciao,
PJ
© 2025 PJ Lehrer
