Weird: transformers in ten cities blow up (UPDATED)

Last Tuesday, lightning struck a transformer that apparently set off a chain reaction. The explosions of several transformers subsequent to the lightning strike was impressive to say the least! The amateur video that captured it soared to youtube popularity and was fodder for the conspiracy sites and chat forums.

Ft. Worth Star Telegram:
"Fire and police dispatchers were busy Tuesday night answering calls about "fireballs" in the sky and on the ground in east Fort Worth. Several transformers were struck by lightning in east Fort Worth Tuesday night, Oncor spokeswoman Jeamy Molina said. Repair crews worked through overnight Wednesday through the afternoon after the lightning strikes "destroyed" some of the transformers, Molina said. About 550 power outages were being reported in the Metroplex as of noon Wednesday, with most of them in the Fort Worth area, Molina said. The number of outages have been reduced from the 4,000 outages reported late Tuesday, Molina said. About 210 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were reported in Tarrant County between 8 and 9 p.m., said National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Mosier, who said he couldn't pinpoint the exact locations. Some 120 more incidents of lightning striking the ground were reported from 9 to 10 p.m., Mosier said. Mosier said he didn't know if it had to strike the transformer directly or the ground close to it but if the lightning carries a large enough electrical charge, it can "blow" a transformer."

I don't know how a lighting strike can blow five of them...Anyway here is the video. It is pretty spectacular.It seemed unusual to me, and I notice repetitive arcing, which seems unusual from just one lightning strike.



Then a couple of days later, an electrical transformer blew up early Thursday morning, causing a fire on the roof of Nasco International Inc. in Fort Atkinson Wisconsin. Here again is amateur video of the event:



Hmmm, two transformer explosions in two days? Interesting but still not a pattern.

Then, today, another one in Las Vegas. UPI reports:

I-15 shut down by Vegas transformer fire

"Las Vegas police said it took about two hours to clear up a traffic mess caused by an electrical transformer explosion behind the Monte Carlo casino. The blast and resulting fire created a cloud of smoke that shut down the northbound lanes of Interstate 15. Metro Police told the Las Vegas Sun there were no injuries and Monte Carlo guests had to be evacuated. The cause of the explosion, which occurred around 12:30 a.m. MDT, was not known."

Weird. And then I discover that one in GA blew, one in Toronto closed a highway, one in St. Louis caused the tornado sirens to go off, and one in Snelville snarled traffic and a transformer explosion in Maryland caused a massive shock wave and leveled an abandoned building. Tonight 5000 unexpectedly lost power in Detroit, reason unknown. All happened this week. NOW it's a pattern.

[UPDATE: in addition to the transformer electrical weirdness reported below, two more reports came in tonight: a Norwegian cruise ship with 1800 passengers and 200 crew aboard is completely without electricity. They are a dead duck, no lights, no operating machinery on board, no engines. They have to be towed back to port. Secondly, the main airport at Kuala Lumpur suffered a total electrical blackout tonight. "Out of the 42 scheduled flights, a total of 13 flights were delayed and in excess of 300 bags were left behind due to the power interruption." ]

I've always thought that a soft target for terrorists would be the electrical grid. The Council for Foreign Relations thinks so too. In this report from 2007, titled "America’s Vulnerable Energy Grid," they wrote, "On August 14, 2003, fifty million people in the Northeastern United States and Canada suddenly found themselves without electricity, some for more than twenty-four hours. In addition to eight lives, the largest blackout in U.S. history cost an estimated $6 billion to $10 billion. Contrary to initial fears, the outage was not the result of a terrorist attack or some other form of sabotage. Rather, untrimmed trees in Ohio set off a chain reaction that cast 9,300 square miles into darkness."

"Sadly, this was no isolated incident. In July 2006, a nine-day power outage in Queens, New York affected one hundred thousand people. The apparent cause of that disruption was deterioration of the thirty- to sixty-year-old cables servicing the area. The same month, a violent thunderstorm in St. Louis, Missouri knocked out power leaving some seven hundred thousand people to brave a weeklong heat wave without electricity."

"Current stresses on the U.S. energy grid present cause for concern. With an aging infrastructure and growing energy consumption, major outages may become an increasing phenomenon. The specter of terrorism also looms large: Experts say jihadis in Iraq have proven adept at disrupting the electrical grid in that country and could easily apply that same skill set in the United States."

I think what they are saying is that if accidental outages from overgrown trees or old cables bring this much havoc and pain to millions of people, then what could a deliberate terrorist disruption do? A lot worse.

Now, the incidents reported above could simply be looting. Copper thieves are getting very desperate these days. I seem to recall a story out of Des Moines from less than a month ago: "Bold Thieves Risk Death to Steal Copper from Energized Transformer." A Toronto article reports, "Thieves are so brazen that they will even steal copper from live transformer stations. Hydro One loses about $1 million a year from stolen copper, said Gregory Taylor, head of copper theft prevention."

The end of the Church Age and the soon Tribulation will bring many of these kids of worries and realities to the remaining earth population. The Day of the Lord is surely coming soon. Are you ready to meet Him? Every life conceived has an eternal destiny. The default condition is death in hell. The choice we can all make is life in heaven. Being ready means recognizing your sins, asking Jesus to forgive them, and then living for Him with the aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, sitting in hundred degree heat high in an apartment building somewhere with no electricity, toilets, elevators, and marauding copper thieves at every turn, will be your best future. The future after that will be much worse. Turn to Jesus now.
Tweet