Explosion and Fire at Hoover Dam | Hacker News Reader

Explosion and Fire at Hoover Dam

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41 pointsbison310 comments

Couple of follow up tweets from Boulder City NV

https://twitter.com/BoulderCityNev/status/154944695936623001...

> Boulder City Fire Department is en route to an emergency call at Hoover Dam. No further information is available at this time.

https://twitter.com/BoulderCityNev/status/154945520167693107...

> the fire was extinguished before Boulder City Fire Department arrived on scene. Bureau of Reclamation/ Hoover Dam will be handling any additional questions.

And finally, the official news release from Bureau of Reclamation

https://twitter.com/usbr/status/1549460732726714371

https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/#/news-release/4273

> At approx. 10 a.m. PDT, the A5 transformer at Hoover Dam caught fire & was extinguished by @usbr/Hoover fire brigade at approx. 10:30am PDT. There are no injuries to visitors/employees. There is no risk to the power grid. Power is still being generated from the powerhouse.

> We are investigating the cause of the fire & will provide additional updates as they are available.

>transformer at Hoover Dam caught fire

you do NOT want to be anywhere near old transformer oil, burning or otherwise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_oil#Polychlorinate...

Looks like a transformer blew up. Happens all the time.

Funny how the best footage on TV news comes from random cell phones.

From the photos this looks like it might be an isophase bus GSU transformer, which is responsible for stepping up generation voltages for one or more generation units to substation voltages. These transformers are large, very expensive, very long-lead custom designs and consequently are closely monitored for temperature rise, hydrocarbon gas discharge, and gas pressure, in addition to various other electrical relay protection schemes acting on the faster electrical damage hazards. They are usually very well protected against all possible major equipment failures. The fact that this happened is an enormous screwup, it's not even within a few orders of magnitude of the power pole transformer that blows up during a lightning storm or similar.

Anyone else feeling like mishaps involving backbone infrastructure and logistics centers are getting a bit common?

Seems like it but might be due to poor maintenance schedules over the last two years catching up to us rather than sabotage or the like.

Yes, but more like 20 years than 2. A lot of utilities out there are failing to properly maintain major infrastructure due to a a lot of complex factors not the least of which is that maintaining things is fundamentally 'unsexy' to management

LOL. The whole Twitter thread is news agencies asking if they can use the video, and regular people telling the OP to "screw credit, get paid!"

Glad that it's not the beginning of Fallout New Vegas story line ;)

Are you confident it’s not? I’m not confident anymore.

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