An underground electrical fire in Hartford on Wednesday morning knocked out power for thousands and Hartford Hospital was operating on generator power.
An underground electrical vault fire on Elm Street around 3:30 a.m. knocked out power to around 9,000 Eversource customers.
"It appears there was an issue with customer-owned underground electric equipment on Elm Street which damaged our equipment. This also caused an underground fire," Eversource said in a statement.
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Eversource isolated the electrical vault and crews extinguished all visible fire with dry chemical extinguishers.
Officials from Hartford Healthcare said power had to be shut down for most of the capital region, including both feeders to Hartford Hospital, so the hospital was on generator power.
“While most essential clinical functions are running, there are limitations like non-functioning elevators, garage gates, and public spaces,” Hartford Healthcare said in a statement.
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They said hospital operations were operating normally and the care to patients was not affected.
Residents of the Colt Gateway Apartments in Harford were among those in the dark until around 2 p.m.
"I noticed my phone wasn’t fully charged and it was eerily quiet so the fan was off, I quickly realized we were without power," Autumn Saucedo said.
"It is kind of weird because the hallways are pitch black," Evan Hill said. " 20:29 "You know, you need a flashlight to get up and down the hallways. It’s cold."
Crews from Eversource spent hours working in the area.
Fire officials do not know what caused the electrical vault fire and it could take days or even weeks to determine.
“Some of these underground vaults are kind of old, it could be just a wear and tear issue. It is unknown at this time,” Hartford Fire Chief Rondy Barco said.
