AK Geek Zone

Exploding Transformer Scared Me To Death

I was sleeping peacefully last night until I heard what I can only describe as a bomb going off outside my window.  I thought for sure the neighbors or someone had started world war three with all the noice and flashes of fire I saw coming in from outside.  Needless to say I couldnt just lay there I had to go look what was happening and seems everyone in the neighborhood had the same idea.  On a telephone pole not far from the corner of my lot a big electrical transformer was snapping and popping like crazy.  I have often heard about transformers that get zapped in a storm but this was the first one i’ve ever seen up close.  As you can imagine everyone was without power.  It took a couple hours for the electric company to get it fixed.  Much faster than I had anticipated.   After seeing such a site I got to browsing on youtube and ran across a whole slew of sparking, snapping, exploding transformers and electrical fires.  Here is one that was quite similar to what happened at our house last night

Tags: electrical fire, exploding transformer