Sikeston probing cause of circuit breaker explosion

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Sikeston Board of Municipal Utilities officials are still working to determine what caused the Wednesday night fire at the substation at Compress and North West streets.

Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, a circuit breaker at the substation blew up, causing roughly half of the city to lose power.

"We really don't know what caused the explosion," said Wayne McSpadden, operations manager for BMU. "We believe it was some sort of mechanical failure inside the breaker, but we are still investigating the cause of the whole problem."

McSpadden said power was restored to most of BMU's customers within the hour and all power had been restored by 4:10 a.m.

"It may take several days before we trace the actual cause down," he said. "There's some major damage out there. Thank goodness it wasn't in a location that totally incapacitated the station."

Sikeston electrical fire