Underground power line fire causes outage at Ypsilanti apartment complex
An underground fire to power lines at Hamilton Crossing apartment complex in Ypsilanti, located at 596 S. Hamilton St., temporarily left residents without power and halted construction on Thursday afternoon.
While working on renovations at the complex formerly known as Parkview Apartments, a Rohde Construction backhoe bumped into a transformer around 1:30 p.m. Nothing seemed off initially, but site manager Mike Howard noticed smoke billowing from the ground shortly after.
Howard caution-taped the area, then called 911 and DTE Energy. He said the fire was visible from a hill he was standing on 20 yards away.
The Ypsilanti Fire Department responded to the call but according to Capt. Max Anthouard, firefighters were not needed to extinguish the blaze, which was caused by the disruption of high-tension wires. Workers with DTE instructed firefighters not extinguish the blaze until DTE was able to cut off the power supply. Once the power supply was cut off, the fire subsided.
Anthouard said no damage was done to the surrounding area.
When Howard left at 6:30 p.m., the power was still out. An employee with Hamilton Crossing said that some units had power by 8 p.m. and power was completely restored by 9:45 p.m. according to DTE officials.
Twenty-one meters were affected by the power outage, most of which were for unoccupied units under construction. Seven occupied apartments were without power during the outage.
Contact Pete Cunningham at petercunningham@annarbor.com or by phone at 734-623-2561. Follow him on Twitter @petcunningham.
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