Underground Cleveland explosion sends manhole cover onto woman’s car

CLEVELAND - As storms rolled through northeast Ohio, Scott Durham thought he saw a bolt of lightning in front of him near East 17th and St. Clair Avenue.

“We’re driving down the street and all of a sudden we see a big bolt of lightning and boom,” he said.

“I looked over and saw the car coming through, there’s a big cloud of smoke and the manhole blew up and landed right on her windshield,” said Durham.

The Honda SUV was driven by Brionia Pratt of Cleveland.

"I thought the world had exploded I didn't know what happened,” said Pratt. “I'm thinking that somebody threw a bomb at me and it landed on top of the car."

The Cleveland Public Power manhole landed on the driver’s side front windshield.

“I'm just glad that it didn't come through the windshield,” said Pratt, “I don’t think my arms could have protected me.”

Though it may have looked like lightning Cleveland Public Power officials said the flash was from the explosion caused by what they called a cable fault, which had nothing to do with the storms that were moving through the area at the time.