Peabody Terrace Explosion Leads to Evacuation

An electrical fire and explosion in a manhole near the Peabody Terrace apartments yesterday emitted dangerous gases that forced residents to evacuate their homes for most of the day.

Officials said yesterday the cause of the fire was not yet known.

Fire officials responded around 10:30 a.m. to reports of foul-smelling smoke off Memorial Drive. Finding dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in some areas, they began to evacuate the buildings about half an hour later.

By 12:30, gases from a fire in an underground transmitter exploded, sending a fireball more than 70 feet in the air, said Deputy Chief Gerald Reardon of the Cambridge Fire Department (CFD). No one was injured in the blast.

Though fire alarms went off throughout Peabody Terrace, many residents did not leave their rooms. Officials said they had to go door-to-door to evacuate residents, who are mostly graduate students and their families.

Cambridge Electric, which is responsible for the transformer, shut off all power to the buildings while CFD contained the fire.

Residents were not allowed to return to their homes until carbon monoxide tests showed safe levels in each of Peabody's 500 units, and Cambridge Electric could provide power for the building.

"You literally have to go room to room, and that was the delay," said University spokesperson Joe Wrinn.

The Peabody Terrace apartments are home to about 1,300 residents, but most were not at home during yesterday's evacuation, officials said.

Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE), which owns Peabody Terrace, coordinated the University's response to the emergency.

Many Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) officers were called in from their shifts and were posted around the perimeter of the apartment complex.

Three residents complaining of dizziness were transported to local hospitals. They were treated and released.

The University provided food and shelter for about 300 evacuees, many of them small children.

At first, residents took refuge in Mather House common rooms and the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. School, where children watched "Pokemon" on television in the cafeteria.

In mid-afternoon, shuttle buses took them to the chilly Palmer Dixon Tennis Courts across the river.

"We'll play some sports--anything to lighten it up," Peabody Terrace Building Manager Pamela N. Cornell told the crowd.

Finally, the evacuated residents migrated next door to the Gordon Indoor Track and Tennis Facility. There, children played on the mats in a pole vault pit that earlier in the day had been used in a track meet.

Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) served the residents snacks of hot chocolate and Oreo cookies until macaroni and cheese, chicken curry and hot soups arrived for dinner.

It took HUDS less than four hours to prepare meals for 400, said Richard M. Spingel, a HUDS production manager, since HUDS chills and bags food in advance. "We just looked at what we had [in the freezer]."

For several hours, Dr. David S. Rosenthal '59, director of University Health Services (UHS), managed a remote pharmacy to provide residents with doses of prescription drugs they had left in their apartments.

Rosenthal said no one had come to him with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, which normally include lightheadedness and nausea.

"We're trying to make sure people are as comfortable as possible," he said as he went to measure out a dose of Robitussin for one of the children.

Although most graduate students were concerned for their personal possessions, most had a more pressing issue on their minds: exams.

Alfonso J. Madrid, who is studying for his Masters in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government, said he was preoccupied by the two take-home exams that he had left on his computer

"If I'd known, I would have e-mailed them so I could have worked on them somewhere else," he said.

Others were more prepared, however.

Pascale M. Schicks, whose husband is a second-year student at the Business School, had flown back from New York in the early afternoon.

Unlike most people, who had left all their belongings in their apartments, she was ready to care for her 10-month-old daughter during the afternoon.

"I'm fine," she said, smiling. "We came back with food for the day."

For most, the ordeal lasted between nine and 10 hours--although it ended earlier than expected. Back at the King school, HUPD had told residents they might be back by midnight.

But at 8:45 p.m. Keller addressed the evacuees who remained in the Gordon Indoor Track and Tennis Facility.

"Everything's safe. Everything's OK," she said--three hours early.

The crowd clapped. And Wrinn took out his camera and snapped a photo of Keller facing the crowd.

Shuttles took the residents back to Peabody Terrace, beating the TV news trucks home.