Boom

Wanna know what can scare the bujezus out of you? When a transformer with three cylinders like the one shown here blows. Like the one 30 feet from our house did last night at around 8:45.

One neighbor later said that it sounded like a bomb had gone off. Su and I were watching TV in the basement and both the sound and the vibration we felt made us both jump up. The power went out in the same instant as the boom and as we raced upstairs I thought I saw lightening lighting up our neighbor's back yard. Turned out that a hot wire had fallen down and set his car on fire. The tires were burning (although we didn't know that until later when we saw the smoke). We of course immediately called 911.

There was no lightening--we still don't know what caused this. We grabbed Danny and went across the street to a neighbor's house (who had kindly shown up at our door with an umbrella telling us to come with her--thanks Taj.) But even after the fire department came the small explosions continued spewing more sparks. They got the car fire out and gave the all clear. As we got to our front porch, it blew again. That was enough for us. We called friends who live about 1/2 mile away and stayed with them last night. They didn't have power either, but the possibility of fire seemed much less there.

This morning I saw the burned wheels on our neighbor's car. There were about 5 wires down in the alley that Pepco is coming to take care of. They couldn't possibly be live still right? I didn't try to touch them to find out.

So how did our young son handle being whisked out of his crib in the dark of night? Very calmly. Susanne was very calm. Me? I was umm...less calm. Two out of three ain't bad right? -Monica