The District Department of Transportation plans to keep 14th Street Northwest in Columbia Heights closed through the evening rush hours as crews work to figure out what caused a manhole explosion Monday night that knocked out power to thousands of people.

Pepco crews worked through the night in the District to restore electricity to a swath of Northwest, stretching as far away as Woodley Park.

The explosion was reported in the area of 14th Street and Clifton Street in Columbia Heights about 11 p.m.

"It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of 14th Street and had no clue what was going on," said witness Zach Tramontana. "All the sudden I heard just this huge explosion, it was crazy. And I come out and there's nothing but smoke coming out of this manhole right over here and the black car that was in front of it just went up in flames."

Police closed off five blocks of 14th Street so Pepco crews could find the problem and fix it.  The Road was reopened during the morning rush hours, but closed again Tuesday afternoon.

At its peak, Pepco reported 5,400 outages linked to the manhole explosion, some were as far away as Adams Morgan and Woodley Park.

Pepco says the explosion tripped a feeder line going into one substation, that in turn tripped another feeder line into a second substation.

Crews were still working to determine the cause of the initial explosion. No one was hurt.

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