Florida Times-Union employees evacuated their building for most of the day Thursday due to smoke caused by a malfunctioning electrical transformer, according to the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.
Carol Holmes, the head of human resources, reported that she heard an explosion around the time the smoke emerged about 11 a.m. The Florida Times-Union, which provided this story, is a WJCT news partner.
Tom Francis, a fire department spokesman, said about 11:30 that firefighters had gotten the transformer under control, but they were trying to abate smoke that had filled the Times-Union’s building, located at 1 Riverside Ave. He said the transformer was in the loading dock area and that mostly smoke and some flames were coming from the unit.
No cause had been determined as of mid-afternoon, he said.
JEA said the outages started when the transformer issue began at the Times-Union, then blew one of JEA’s underground units. Three others for JEA were taken off line as a precaution, the resulting outage shutting down the Skyway Express, whose base station is across Riverside Avenue.
It also affected the Prime Osborn Convention Center a few blocks away, as well as some businesses and traffic signals on Riverside Avenue.
A longer version of this story with additional photos is on jacksonville.com.
