At the Baltimore Banner, Baltimore’s 19th-century underground pipes are literally bursting into flames
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| A manhole shattered by an explosion |
Cables carrying electricity and information — the hidden lifeblood of Baltimore — thread through hundreds of miles of terracotta tubes so old that PVC pipes hadn’t been invented when they were buried below the city streets. Those clay conduits keep catching fire, sometimes exploding and turning 323-pound manhole covers into dangerous projectiles. There’s no consensus as to why. And there’s no clear answer as to whose responsibility it is to prevent it from happening again.
A variety of underground stakeholders operate in and around the city-owned conduit, leaving each one pointing fingers and looking at others for answers. The City Council has scheduled a hearing Tuesday, its second on the issue in a year. “Everybody is cagey because no one wants to take responsibility,” said Councilman Mark Conway, who called for the hearing. “There’s a lot of infrastructure down there. ... There’s so many things that could go wrong.”
These kinds of fires have been occurring for a century. But the pace is picking up, and the concentration is noticeable: Eight times in roughly two years, underground forces like fires have blown off manhole covers. Three of those incidents occurred in a small slice of downtown Baltimore, including the most recent one, on June 28.
A 2023 agreement between the city and the region’s utility and primary conduit user, Baltimore Gas and Electric, has muddled the issue of responsibility.
One especially explosive inferno in September on Charles Street swallowed up a bookstore, caused over $300,000 in damage and left 2,000 people without power, according to a report BGE filed to state regulators.
Sometimes I think it might be easier to raze Baltimore and start over. Do you think Martha's Vineyard would take the refugees in the meantime?
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