Pepco was ordered by D.C.’s utility regulator to update its training regimen for manhole inspectors days before an explosion in Northwest charred an automobile and left thousands of residents without power.
The training directive from the Public Service Commission was issued Friday. Late Monday night, a manhole fire and explosion on 14th Street near Clifton Street set a sport utility vehicle ablaze, left more than 5,000 people without electricity and closed streets through the Tuesday afternoon rush.
The manhole responsible for Monday’s incident was last inspected Aug. 15, 2001, Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin said. The fire started when a secondary, 4,000-volt cable burned into the primary, 13,000-volt cable.
“An inspection cannot and will not prevent all failures,” Dobkin said. “You can only inspect what you can see and touch, and it’s not necessarily going to stop anything.”
Pepco maintains the second-largest underground power system in the country, with roughly 60,100 manholes. Water, chemicals, rats and debris can cause smoke and fire that send 300-pound manhole covers soaring. Manhole explosions are one of the District’s “18 major hazards,” according to the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.
Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution Inc., a consultant for the Public Service Commission on Pepco’s manhole program, has discovered more “reportable conditions” in its inspections than the utility, according to a report filed last week. Siemens‘ review of 215 manholes found 70 problems, 29 of which required repair within six months.
Those results “have raised immediate concerns regarding the quality assurance and reliability of Pepco’s inspections,” the commission stated. It directed Pepco to develop a formal manhole inspection training program.
Pepco inspected 12,066 manholes in 2007 and found 1,301 in need of repair. The number of manhole “events” — including smoke, fire and explosions — soared from 56 in 2006 to 96 in 2007, according to Pepco.
