Daniel Brown/Business Insider Emergency responders at the scene of a manhole cover explosion in downtown Manhattan on March 22, 2018
- An explosion rocked lower Manhattan on Thursday afternoon. The loud boom was heard for blocks around Wall Street.
- The NYPD said the sound came from the pop of a manhole cover.
- Manhole covers explode all the time in New York. Here's why.
A loud boom heard throughout downtown Manhattan on Thursday afternoon was due to a manhole cover explosion, the NYPD reported.
The NYPD quickly confirmed that a manhole cover blew open in front of 53 Nassau Street, and said no serious injuries were reported. A reporter from WCBS said on Twitter that a transformer blew underground near the Federal Reserve, though Business Insider has not independently confirmed that information.
Mark Lennihan/AP
Flames rise from a manhole in New York on March 8, 2015.
Old manholes throughout the city cover a maze of vulnerable, old wires and cables laid under the streets. When roads and sidewalks get coated with salt to keep ice from accumulating during snowy weather, the erosive material can seep into manholes and hit the wires. The salt wears away insulation that coats underground electrical wires. If they get really frayed, the system can act like a combustible powder keg: the insulation heats and starts to spark and smoke. That triggers a build up of pressure that can lead to a loud boom and send the heavy metal cover flying into the air. In extreme cases, electrical fires can start.
Such was the case in Manhattan today, after a snowy nor'easter storm blew through the city on Wednesday. The salty snow-melt created a perfect recipe for manhole cover explosions.
New York's electrical system is the oldest in the country, and some of the underground wires here are near 100 years old. Con Edison has been working to replace old manhole covers with better vented ones in New York City since 2005. But with 246,000 manhole covers around the city's five boroughs, there's a lot of ground to cover.