By John Burton
RED BANK – Amy Hanbury, general manager of DoubleTake consignment boutique, talking about the loud bangs, smoke and flames on Broad Street that resulted in the loss of power and business for some on Sunday afternoon, describing it as “crazy.”
“The worst part was the smoke,” Hanbury said, noting how it billowed out of the contained belowground compartments on the sidewalks. Adding to the confusion, police blocked off the stretch of Broad Street in the area of St. James Roman Catholic Church from pedestrians and prevented Hanbury, employees and customers from leaving or entering the 97 Broad St. shop. “So, it was time to go,” and Hanbury closed the shop early.
At about 3:10 p.m. on Sunday, Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L) received the first call about disruption in service that ultimately affected 260 Red Bank area customers, according to Ron Morano, a JCP&L spokesman.
“We had a crew respond by 3:30 (p.m.),” Morano said. And the crew found that a secondary wire located in what Morano called a “hand-hole” (less than 4-feet deep that holds electrical wires), on the sidewalk in the Broad Street/Canal Street area, in the immediate proximity of Red Bank Catholic High School, had experienced a fault.
A secondary wire is one that feeds into a service point and provides electric to individual customers, he explained.
The fault “resulted in that wire burning,” causing smoke in that hand-hole and another one in the area, Morano said.
The electric company has not determined what caused the fault and is still investigating. Power was restored to all but 10 customers by approximately 9:30 p.m. Crews worked through Sunday night and the remaining 10 customers had their power restored by 6 a.m., Monday, Morano said.
The hand-holes contain only wires and no other equipment was damaged, Morano said.
Police detoured traffic in the area and closed the sidewalks to pedestrians for approximately 90 minutes, along with evacuating St. James Roman Catholic Church and one Broad Street business, said Police Chief Darren McConnell.
There were no injuries and no property damage with the exception to JCP&L’s belowground pit, McConnell said.
While aboveground equipment, such as downed wires and malfunctioning transformers can be regular occurrences, “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” with electric underground equipment malfunctioning, McConnell observed. “But JCP&L was there quickly and were able to isolate the outages to a small area.”
Marie Ventralla, general manager of oneblowdrybar salon, 116 Broad St., was the business that had to be evacuated. She said there were a series of six explosions, flames and “a lot of smoke,” from the holes, which unnerved employees and customers. “It was kind of wild,” she observed, and led to closing the salon for the day and disappointing clients with appointments.
“It was weird. The manhole cover blew,” and flames were visible, said Harrison Bern, the manager on duty at the time at Earth Pizza restaurant, 95 Broad St.
“I’m not going to argue the definition of ‘explosion,’ ” Morano said, but conceded, “granted, when the fault occurred there was probably some type of loud noise, “and “there very well could have been a flame.”
That being said, Morano insisted, “Our equipment did not explode.”
Explosion or not Sunday’s event led school officials to close Red Bank Catholic and St. James Elementary school on Monday and cancel early Mass services on Monday, as a precaution, even though the schools and church didn’t lose power, according to Red Bank Catholic’s school office.
