The Queensborough Bridge reopened Wednesday afternoon after an electrical fire under the bridge span forced its closure earlier that day.
The blaze was sparked by the failure of a City of New Westminster-owned high voltage cable running under the bridge deck, was reported at about 1 a.m. after someone noticed smoke coming out of an access cover on the crossing.
The fire put itself out, city officials said, but not before causing significant damage to the power line, knocking out power to Queensborough and parts of the West End and necessitating the closure of Queensborough schools.
The bridge was closed in both directions until Ministry of Transportation engineers determined the span hadn’t sustained any structural damage.
But the bridge won’t be fully opened until the electrical cables are fixed.
Restoring power to Queensborough was expected to take up to 15 hours to restore but took much longer. Residents were without power until early Thursday morning. By about 6 a.m. some parts of Port Royal were still in the dark.
