By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A series of explosions rocked Lisbon Street Tuesday afternoon and the scene was a familiar one. An electrical problem beneath the ground in front of Grimmel’s Auto Sales was so powerful it blew a manhole cover into the air three times before it was over.

“As heavy as that manhole cover is, it must have come three feet off the ground,” said Grimmel’s owner Mike Grimmel. “It made my knees buckle.”

At the same time, sparks were shooting from power lines overhead and a large portion of the downtown area went dark. The power remained out for nearly an hour before a temporary fix was put in place and more extensive repairs began.

The 3:30 p.m. incident occurred in almost the same spot where a burst underground pipe resulted in a massive sinkhole two weeks ago. The hole, directly in front of Grimmel’s, forced the closure of lower Lisbon Street for nearly a week.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all,” said Fred Quimby, an employee at Grimmel’s Auto Sales.

Quimby was moving cars in Grimmel’s sales lot when the first of the underground explosions rocked the earth and blew upward.

“I heard whoosh!’ I looked over and the manhole cover was just coming back down onto the ground,” Quimby said.

When the manhole cover first blew from the ground, employees at Grimmel’s didn’t know what caused the problem. Grimmel said he had been showing a potential customer a Suburban at the time. After the first explosion, he advised her to leave the lot.

She left before emergency crews arrived, and two more blasts occurred.

Central Maine Power Co. crews went beneath the street where they determined the problem resulted from a cable failure. The cable runs from below the street to the top of a utility pole nearby.

The power outage affected a long line of CMP customers down Lisbon Street and more on Park Street and surrounding areas. A CMP spokesman said the Park Street area was affected only because there was unrelated electrical work going on in that neighborhood, as well.

The exact number of CMP customers affected wasn’t known, though it was mostly limited to lower Lisbon Street. By 4:15 p.m., power was restored.

A CMP spokesman said power was restored through a temporary fix at first. The problem was expected to be fully repaired by early Tuesday night.

While emergency and utility crews were at the scene, police limited traffic around that area of lower Lisbon Street to one lane. All lanes were expected to be open later Tuesday night.