NEW YORK — The night sky turned blue across New York City on Thursday when a transformer exploded at a Con Ed facility in Queens.
An FDNY spokesman said firefighters responded to the blast on 20th Avenue in Steinway at about 9:20 p.m. The transformer exploded on a site Con Ed shares with power-generating companies and other industrial facilities.
“I thought it was a terrorist attack. Everything was flooded with smoke. It looked like blue fire. It was so big it was like the whole sky turned blue,” said Astoria resident Ziad Elnokrashy.
“I thought it was the end of the world,” Elnokrashy said.
“I saw the light come and then everything looked blue,” said Catalina Romero, another Astoria resident.
“All my neighbors went out. I knew something was wrong. A lot of people panicked,” Romero said. “It was like daylight. The lights went out for 10 minutes.”
“I heard a boom and my lights blinked for a moment,” said David Schwartz, who lives near the scene. “Then I saw a blue glow outside and the whole sky was lit up like it was twilight.”
The burning transformer “was sparking and glowing white,” said Schwartz. “I’ve been here since 2005 and this is first time anything like this has happened.”
Dozens of pictures and videos of the explosion showed up on social media.
Con Edison reported power outages in several Queens neighborhoods, including Astoria, Jackson Heights and Whitestone.
The blast halted some departures at LaGuardia Airport, which according to Con Ed switched to backup generators. It also stopped some No. 7 train service.
Around 10:30 p.m., Con Ed drove the burned-out transformer out of the site. It was about 10 feet tall and 2 feet wide.
Con Edison said on Twitter around 11 p.m. that the incident was “a brief electrical fire” that “caused a transmission dip.” It said the electrical system was “stable.”
A company spokesman at the scene dismissed first responders’ reports that the incident was an “explosion.”
“There was no explosion. It was a fire,” said Philip O’Brien, a Con Ed spokesman. He said the blue glow was caused by “electrical arcing.”
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