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The identity and present condition are not given of the PPL worker, who reports say was seriously injured.
WILKES-BARRE – PPL Electric Utilities is continuing an investigation into the cause of an explosion and fire in an underground electrical vault downtown on Sunday.
PPL spokesman Rich Beasley said he is not aware of any outside agency also investigating the explosion, and there is no time line for the completion of the investigation.
As per company policy, Beasley said he would not release the identity or present condition of a PPL employee who was in the vault when the explosion occurred. He would not say if the employee was still hospitalized. City emergency personnel also would not release the victims’ names.
Wilkes-Barre Assistant Fire Chief Ed Snarski had said on Sunday that the employee was seriously injured and that he and a second PPL employee, who was outside the vault at the time of the explosion, were transported to Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township.
The seriously injured employee was later taken to Lehigh Valley Medical Center, Snarski had said.
The fire department responded at 4:21 a.m. Sunday for an initial report of a couple of vehicles on fire at the corner of Union Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, near the Thomas C. Thomas Building. Snarski had said firefighters could see a “globe of fire and a big plume of smoke” rising as they were en route.
When crews arrived, they found the two employees in the street and a large fire coming from the underground electrical vault, just outside the Thomas Building, which houses Luzerne County’s Central Court, Snarski had said.
About 1,200 PPL customers had lost power after the explosion; it had been restored to all but 30 customers by noon, and to all but one customer by 3:15 p.m. Sunday, Beasley said.
However, power was turned off to additional customers throughout the day.
Beasley explained that it’s sometimes necessary to take some customers temporarily out of service in order to restore service to other customers when dealing with an underground electrical network. The process is known as “switching,” he said.
“The basic premise of what we’re trying to do is isolate the problem and get customers set from a particular line,” he said.
Beasley said the plan is to ultimately “repair any damage done and return the system to its prior operations.” He said a fire such as the one on Sunday is “an extremely rare occurrence for PPL,” and he could recall no similar fires in the recent past.