One of the joys in watching a live broadcast, no matter what it is, involves witnessing completely unplanned events happening to everyone’s surprise. Sometimes it’ll be a bit of impulsive swearing, and sometimes it’ll be a reveal of most of Janet Jackson’s boob. And in the case of a recent news broadcast in New York, it was an explosion that sent a manhole cover flying sky-high. Check it out in the video clip below.
The incident occurred on Sunday, April 12, in Buffalo, where an underground electrical fire had already caused one explosion earlier in the downtown area. Two buildings had to be evacuated, according to WGRZ, and the police shut down the intersections where the danger was strongest. WGRZ’s Two On Your Side journalist Dave Harrington was interviewing one witness when the second explosion happened. Kapow!
There are few nightmare scenarios quite as particularly horrifying as a flying piece of 110-pound metal and/or concrete, as there’s really nothing one can do about it other than run away as quickly as possible. No outcome from that situation exists that doesn’t involve massive damage, unless of course it happens in Metropolis and a certain Man of Steel is around to take care of it. But since Superman is probably busy getting into arguments with Batman right now, we’re just happy that no one was hurt during the explosion. Not the best time for a random passerby to be out for a morning jog.
The Buffalo Fire Department reported a third, smaller explosion happening later, although that one wasn’t caught on film. Power company National Grid is still investigating the cause for the explosions, but it looks like it was a build-up of trapped heat, gas and smoke beneath the road. Had there been any pizza dough found at the scene, that hypothesis would have to be reworked entirely.
I guess the moral of this story is: exploding manhole covers are scary as shit and should be avoided at all costs. Not the most…groundbreaking…idea, but still good advice all around.
