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Video taken by two women in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida illustrates just how violent an underground transformer explosion can be.
The footage, shared by Vanessa Herring and Hannah Rebholz earlier this week, shows emergency crews responding to dark smoke billowing from a manhole.
"Stand back, guys," one of the women can be heard yelling to the firefighters in the footage, just before the transformer explodes.
"You felt the building shake and heard glass break and all sort of craziness. It was pretty intense there for a while," an eyewitness told a local Fox News affiliate.
The blast sent everyone running as flames erupted from the underground vault. Luckily, there have been no reports of injuries.
"All of a sudden, I heard a boom, bam," recalled another witness. "The ground shook, the buildings were shaking." Some fire units attacked the flames while others had to rescue one person stuck in an elevator without power, reports Fox 13.
The transformer fire caused power outages across much of the area through the night, with most of the power being restored by 9a.m. via a temporary transformer. The local utility, Duke Energy, initially reported 750 customers without power, but that number was down to 18 within an hour.
Meanwhile, Duke Energy officials remain on the scene, working the with St. Pete Fire Rescue deputy fire marshal to determine what caused the fire.
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