Wednesday, March 30, 2016

BLAM!!

(Uh, got busy and forgot to do a Monday blog.  Sorry... Eeeep.)

Husband and I took some family to the airport for a flight.  The day after the bombings in Brussels.  That was interesting.  I was along to, quite literally, stay in the car, so it would not be towed.  If your car is not with person, you can't leave it near the loading area.  And since one member of the family has a problem with walking, and uses a wheelchair, we needed to work something out.  Hence, my sittin' and knittin' in the car...

So, we dropped off said family, which went much better than I thought it would.  Heading back home, we decided to have dinner at a local fast food place.  This was just a quick stop.  I was sort of mindlessly eating, watching a bird fly in loops nearby.  I suspect there must have been bugs it was hunting, or something, but it was zipping in little circles, and had attracted my attention.  

This meant I was looking up, actually right at a power pole...  when-
BLAM!!
A tremendous noise, and smoke puff from said power pole!  I couldn't figure out what had happened, there had been a bright flash, too, but I didn't see any power out.  However, there most definitely was, as there were squawks of confusion, and "oh, crap" to be heard from the grill area.  I pointed out the smoke, and asked Husband if a transformer blew, pointing to the smoke.  He glanced up, and said nooo, but it looks like two of the fuses blew to avoid that happening.  Which means that we are on single phase power right now.  

(And for all you who are wondering, so? I shall explain.)  I looked at the lights.  Still on.  Muzak-y stuff was still coming out of the speakers.  However, by the sounds of panic, the stove was off, as were the refrigerator, and things were being quickly put on trays to transfer to the walk in cooler.  There was also a urgent search for tape, to put up a temporary "closed" sign.

I needed to use the rest room.

BLACK AS A PIT!  As it turned out, that was on a different 'leg', one that the fuse went out on, so I was quite happy I had my little goofy heart shaped novelty flashlight.  Looks silly, worked well.  So, as we left, we saw fire trucks and an ambulance go flying by.  Car crash against a pole seemed to be the cause, it conked the pole, which dominoed, causing the flash/bang I witnessed.

Oh, and the little bird?  GONE.  The blast scared it, and it left no forwarding address, it just scrammed!

4 comments:

Cperz said...

That seems to happen rather often here...people running into poles and transformer boxes. Last month our power was off for nearly a day because a crash took out a pole that had a transformer box at the bottom. I wonder if it isn't more about the distracted drivers using devices while driving.

Sharon said...

Interesting day, I must say. Poor bird, probably scared it good.

stephen Hayes said...

Smart bird to get the heck out of there. Glad you're okay.

messymimi said...

Just glad the bird didn't cause the whole thing by running into the transformer and getting itself sent to birdie heaven! The kids were standing outside one day when the neighbor's transformer blew. Scared the crap out of them.