An underground electrical fire in Hartford on Wednesday morning knocked out power for thousands and Hartford Hospital is 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 and the company said it has restored power to 8,400.
"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.
Eversource isolated the electrical vault and crews extinguished all visible fire with dry chemical extinguishers.
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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 has been 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.
They said hospital operations are operating normally and the care to our patients is not affected.
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If the power outage impacts surgeries that are scheduled, patients will be contacted.
Crews from Eversource have been working in the area and expect power to be fully restored by Wednesday afternoon.
