State Street lacked its familiar glow Monday evening after two underground electrical fires knocked out power on much of the east side of campus and throughout the downtown business district.
The first blaze was discovered when smoke began billowing out of manhole covers that had burst out of the pavement at the intersection of State and Henry Streets, leaving the road to the Capitol unlit into the night. The second occurred at approximately 8:30 p.m. near the intersection of Langdon and Henry Streets and produced similar effects.
\[The first] fire was called in at 3:00 p.m.,"" said Lori Wirth, public information officer for the Madison Fire Department, while standing outside Tutto Pasta, 305 State Street. ""The fire was brought under control pretty quickly.""
Steve Kraus, spokesman for Madison Gas and Electric, said 3,500 customers were affected by the initial outage.
""There is no definite cause, we do know it was a mechanical problem, but we should not know the cause by this evening,"" Kraus said.
However, according to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, authorities suspect the initial problem erupted at the MG&E substation on North Murray Street.
""The substation is responsible for much of the downtown campus area,"" he said. ""The problems supposedly started there and then traveled underground through the utility work to near Fontana, [251 State St].""
An MG&E worker at the scene claimed a secondary cable that fed electricity to the area burned up. The worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he had never seen a condition similar to that of the blown cable.
According to Wirth, the fire was confined while smoke filled the basements of several nearby shops and restaurants.
Verveer explained that Madison Fire officials purposely shut down power during both the afternoon and the evening fires in order to create a safe environment in which MG&E workers could make lasting repairs.
""Once the power was cut out, the fires all extinguished themselves underground,"" Verveer said.
""Our firefighters went into those businesses and determined that there was no extent of actual fire damage; the smoke was just residual,"" Wirth said. ""They made sure everything was safe before the MG&E workers could get down to the business of doing their job.""
The power outage proved hazardous for motorists. Though there were no injuries, according to Madison Police Officer Laura Walker, an accident on Broom and Mifflin Streets was possibly linked to the unlit traffic lights.
At 3:30 p.m., Madison Police Officer Meredith York directed rush hour traffic from northbound Johnson Street onto Broom Street. Her squad car parked in the middle of the road, York was optimistic that the situation would be resolved quickly.
""I work State Street on foot patrol, so this is a big difference from what I normally do... we're getting through it,"" York said.
Campus facilities east of Park Street, including Vilas Hall, Humanities, Memorial Union and the Southeastern Dorms were affected by the outage. John Harrod, director of the UW-Madison Physical Plant, explained how buildings could be divided into portion with and without power.
""We have a number of different feeds that run throughout campus. and depending on which feed may have been down, that could have taken out a section of that building. Feeds go into a building and into a transformer, and are then distributed throughout the building. If that one particular line goes down, that could take out a section,"" Harrod said. ""Memorial Union, for example, has been built on through the years, so one section of the building could have a feed that went down.""
Harrod was unaware of any permanent damage caused by the power outage and regarded the campus electricity stoppage more as an inconvenience to academics than as a threat to researchers.
""Normally, when we have a power outage, the biggest frustration comes to folks who might have been working on computers, and the loss of whatever they were working on."" Harrod said.
Although MG&E initially restored power shortly after 5:00 p.m., electrical problems plagued the Langdon Street area into the night. Power was lost again at 9:00 p.m., only to be returned to the neighborhood at 10:45 p.m., after officials attempted to isolate faulty cables while students reported seeing more smoke emanating from the ground.
""The manhole cover across from Sigma Chi was smoking, and I was about 20 feet away. There were firemen standing around it,"" UW-Madison junior and Langdon Street resident Sean Keene said. ""I thought it was terrorism.""
