Entergy continues to investigate the cause of a transformer explosion that set black plumes of smoke billowing from downtown El Dorado last Thursday.
Customer service representative Chris Wasson said the company doesn’t have any information to release on the cause of the fire, but that, by 4 p.m. Thursday, Entergy was able to restore power to downtown businesses due to their system’s capacity in that area of the city.
“We’re fortunate that we were able to isolate that transformer,” he said. “We have some redundancies built into that underground network. There were some transformers about a block away that were sized large enough to pick up the load that that transformer had. The system is designed intentionally so that if something mechanical does fail, we have those redundancies. We don’t have that everywhere, but for that scenario, it was in place.”
Last Thursday, EPD Fire Marshal Jason Evans and Lt. Chris Lutman said a transformer blew in a vault underneath an electrical panel downtown. The electrical panel was one of several that were installed during a sidewalk improvement project that began in 2013 and is being completed in phases as funding allows. The panels were installed to boost utility capabilities to accommodate outdoor festivals and events in the Union Square District. Damaged sidewalks were also replaced with concrete pavers, new street lamps were installed and new trees planted as part of the improvement.
Wasson said that an outage in the underground network is rare, but that it will take longer to replace the equipment than an overhead transformer.
“It’s not something we deal with on regular basis,” he said. “A lot of the underground facilities are pretty reliable. When they do go out, it takes longer to repair. On an overhead transformer, we could have had that replaced within the two hours [it took to restore power on Thursday].”
Wasson said Entergy should be able to replace the transformer using the grate system on top of it without tearing up any of the street. Entergy crews were in downtown Tuesday morning as part of the company’s continued investigation of the fire.
The transformer blew Thursday afternoon on Elm Street between Jefferson and Hill avenues, cutting off power to local businesses and the Union County Courthouse. No injuries were reported.
Emergency responders from the El Dorado police and fire departments and the Union County Sheriff’s Office worked the scene, as did crews from the city’s Department of Public Works and El Dorado Water Utilities.
News-Times reporter Tia Lyons contributed to this story.