A manhole explosion and underground fire late Thursday night shut down power in parts of downtown Baltimore Friday morning, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM). Many government buildings, businesses and residences around the 300 and 400 block of North Charles Street lost power as authorities tried to fix electrical damage. Several city buildings were affected by the outage, with essential buildings running on emergency power. The Mitchell and Cummings courthouses are closed Friday because of the outage. The emergency work has also shut down many streets in the area and is impacting mass transit, complicating the morning commute.
Due to the underground explosion overnight, Charles Street remains closed to traffic at Fayette Street. Side streets including Lexington, Saratoga and Mulberry are also affected. If traveling downtown, please allow extra commute time this morning and use alternate routes. pic.twitter.com/4eKo1zPzTF
— Baltimore City DOT (@BmoreCityDOT) January 26, 2024
Emergency personnel said they arrived at the 300 block of North Charles Street late Thursday night after reports of “an underground fire, multiple manhole smoke emissions, and possible manhole explosions.” OEM outlined in a news release how firefighters on the scene worked to extinguish a fire coming out of a manhole cover and investigated the smoke coming from many manholes. The fire affected electrical wiring underneath North Charles Street, which meant that power had to be shut down to local buildings in the area. OEM said that the outage is still affecting the general area of Centre, Liberty, St. Paul and Fayette streets as electrical companies try to fix the impacted electrical conduits and put out any residual blazes. Many services were impacted by the outage, authorities said, including 911 dispatches, city buildings and several Mercy Hospital buildings that were without power for a period. Emergency service communications went out a little after 1 a.m. and emergency personnel are still using alternative communication networks as disruptions persist, according to OEM. There are no disruptions to 911 calls at the moment, only internal 911 dispatches. Emergency personnel have not said what caused the explosion and underground fire as of Friday morning. The Associate Press contributed to this report.