Another explosion in Astoria...

[CritterNYC]

For anyone that missed it, there was another explosion in Astoria last night.  This one at the corner of Ditmars and 31st.  Seems to be due to a transformer.  It blew the manhole cover into the engine block of a car sitting over it.  Destroyed the car, the windows in the flower shop and a few at Eckards.  The driver was in the car but word was he was mostly ok.  This is similar to the incident last month in front of Andrew and Frank's over on 23rd Ave at 28th St.  The car in that instance blew up as the manhole cover hit the gas tank.  Luckily noone was inside it at the time.

If you have a car here... think twice about parking or idling over a manhole...

[merm]

Thank you for the update on this. I was wondering what the explosion was as it rattled the window in my apartment. I was wondering if it was someone up to no good, or something natural like that.

[CritterNYC]

When I heard it, I thought maybe it was thunder... since there'd been some within the previous few days... or, perhaps, a transformer explosion.  When I lived in CT, it was a fairly regular occurence for them to explode when there was high electrical demand.  Of course, they were on the tops of utility poles, so they didn't usually blow anything else up.  Here, being underground, they blow manhole covers into cars.

[KilDaraSidhe]

Last summer they had one at the corner of 31st and 23rd go. It cought the car on fire wich in turn cought the tree and pharmacy on fire. They also had one go off on 26 between ditmars and 21 that blew out windows of an apartment building over there. I think we as a community need to start taking action against Con Ed to check these things out more often and upgrade, fix them before someone gets seriously hurt.

[lanseaux]

More or less just to keep track here, there was also a manhole explosion on the corner of 21st Ave. and Steinway on May 20.  I don't know what property damage there may have been.