ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Safety News and Product Recalls Rain floods electric panel. Fire leaves 700 homeless.

On Saturday, February 22 the basement of a building in Yonkers, N.Y. caught fire. Authorities suspect that rain water leaked into the electrical panel and was responsible for the fire.

When I saw some of the footage on TV of the charred panel, the lugs looked like CHARCOAL. One thing that looked like a circuit breaker was cleanly cracked in two.

The fire left almost 700 residents homeless.

For the complete story, follow this link:
http://www.thejournalnews.com/print_newsroom/022403/a0124ykevac.html


[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 02-25-2003).]

SvenNYC,
That's a strange one, mate.
You would think that an Electrical panel in a Basement area, would have to be water-proof, being the lowest point of the building.
What sized main was it?.

Trumpy,

I don't know what size the service was for that building. I saw this on the TV news and then read it in the next day's paper.

We had some heavy snows in the New York City metro area (Yonkers borders northern New York City) the past couple of weeks ago -- about 2 feet high.

Then there were a few "warm" days (40 degree Fahrenheit weather) -- enough to melt most of the snow. And then there were rains. I suspect that the building's basement windows were probably leaky enough that water got in through them.

From what I've been told (my in-laws are familiar with the place) it's a complex of buildings. Only one was affected, it seems.

According to the local paper, they think water entered from a manhole in the street and flowed thru the service conduit into the panel itself.