52nd St Manhole Fire At My Office

With my headphones on listening to Blink-182 (old school, I know) and fidgeting on pivot tables, I hear a mumbled male voice over the intercom saying something about a fire and Viacom but nothing about evacuating, so I went back to doing work.  Fire? Meh, nothing to be alarmed about.  Turns out there ACTUALLY was a big fire right downstairs of my office at 52nd St and Broadway.  A manhole exploded from an underground fire around 4 pm.

The video below shows the manhole explosion:

Every five minutes after the fire, I could hear a muffled siren heading our way.  Around 7 pm, the voice over the intercom told us they were shutting down the A/C in the building (my network server was also shut down, no warning was given) and wanted us to turn off all lights not being used in order to use less electricity, as ConEd demanded.  I left work right after.  I exited the lobby elevators and the building's Southwest entrance that faced the blast was roped off.  Over 15 fire trucks were parked at the intersection.  Evacuated-Broadway show attendees, television crews and nosy tourists crowded the streets.  The ridiculous number of fire trucks parked in the middle of Times Square was more of a spectacle than the hopefully smothered fire.