Late Night Entertainment

Last night Amy and I went out to catch the Lexington Symphony; they were doing a Beethoven program that looked good, so Amy bought the tickets, I hired a sitter and we had a nice musical evening together. At the very tail end of it, however, we had a bit of excitement on our stretch of Burlington St.  I had just gotten into bed and Amy was still watching the local news when there was a loud crack (sounded like a gunshot) from across the street, after which all of our lights went out. We opened the front door and took a look; we could smell smoke and see a few tiny flames on the sidewalk across the street. I dialed 9-1-1 and then we waited for the police to arrive. By the time the police showed up, the end of the power line (which was sitting in the gutter on the opposite side of the street in the rain) had gone up like a roman candle, and was making some very scary noises. The police guy didn't even want to get out of his car at first, I assume because of all the water on the ground (he yelled to us to stay put), but in a few more minutes the fire department showed up and a fireman walked over to check on the situation. By this point, the end of the line literally looked (and sounded) like an electric arc welder. It was too bright to look at with a naked eye (I had to use sunglasses) and it was kicking off huge clouds of steam and smoke:

I had no idea power lines could be this destructive-- my assumption was that a downed line would just sort of sit around unless you brushed something conductive up against it.  The police and fire guys called the power company and then we all basically sat and waited for them to turn off the line so that it could be repaired (took them quite a while, nearly an hour).  To their credit, however, they worked through the night and by the next morning we had our power back on again. The next morning Ethan and I went over to take a look. This shot is of the section of curb where the line was resting at one point:

Yes, that is indeed melted granite that you are looking at. A whole section of pavement in the area around had been "cooked" and was showing holes & fissures. At this point there was still much poking and prodding going on with the utility guys, and in another hour or so they determined that the fire had actually melted part of the gas line buried underneath the street, so they had to send in a whole new crew to dig it up and repair it.

It was an interesting "learning experience" on power lines and the things they are capable of doing. It was also a nice reminder of how quickly the emergency services work in our town, too-- as with the episode we had back in March of 2008 (drunk driver hit a tree outside our house) they were there within just a couple of minutes. Those old jokes about how the pizza delivery guy arrives before the paramedic don't seem to apply here.