We had a little bit of excitement in our neighborhood last night. At 9:30 p.m., the lights went out and we heard the loud pop of a transformer blowing. Group texts and Facebook posts among neighbors started flying and one neighbor explained that a tree had fallen in between her and her neighbor’s house, knocking down the power lines and blowing the transformer. She said it looked and sounded like fireworks going off, and that her husband had been outside on a walk when it fell. He missed getting hit by seconds and was stuck on the other side of the mess. Thank goodness he was safe!
Jay and I decided to take our flashlights and take a walk up the block to investigate. We were joined by other neighbors who were also curious, and man, was it a mess. There was a giant tree in the middle of the road, a live power line on the ground, and oil from inside of the transformer spilled onto the road and into a drainage ditch that went into our neighborhood’s lake. The fire department was already there when we got there and they quickly started cleaning up the spill, pouring some kind of sand or chemical-cleanup stuff all over it.
We only stayed maybe 10 minutes before heading back home. A neighbor texted an update around 11:15 p.m. that there were a ton of workers from the power company there working on the pole. We went to bed a little while after that update. I tried being cool and reading by candlelight/flashlight, but instead, pulled up a hot spot on my phone and finished posting my blog post on The Broadcast’s Halloween episode, since I had finished the text portion and was inserting pictures when we lost power.
The power came back on at 2:38 a.m. How do I know this exact time? Because the lights were on in our bedroom when the power went out and despite remembering to turn the light switches off everywhere else, we had forgotten to do so in our bedroom! Suddenly, everything went super bright and we were jolted awake, haha. It was like that very last shot in “Rogue One,” lol. We went around to make sure all was well and that no kids had woken up and went back to sleep.
Zach, Alex, and I took a walk down the street this morning to check it out in the daylight. It looks like part of the tree hit part of a neighbor’s boat, though I couldn’t get a good angle to really see. They cleared the tree off of the road, though. The powerline was still on the ground, but the power company was there, so hopefully, they’ll get it all cleaned up soon. Really grateful that no one got hurt and that the power came back on fairly quickly. We really thought we’d be showering at the YMCA after the kids’ swimming lessons this morning, haha. Whew! Have a happy and safe Saturday, all!
