Showers and Thunderstorms Likely this Afternoon, Tuesday May 15
Regional damage report from the NWS: https://nwschat.weather.gov/p.php?pid=201805160015-KOKX-NWUS51-LSROKX
I'll have to find out what exactly happened, but last night I was sleeping at about 11:00 pm and my wife came into the bedroom, turned on the lights and said "I can't believe you slept through this" - she had been working at her computer. I looked out and there were all kind of red/blue lights in front of our house and our neighbors' house - a lot of fire trucks. My wife said the SOFD came into our house and checked our basement and asked whether we had any flickering lights - we didn't. It seems that a small fire started in our neighbor's house because of a power surge caused by the storm - as I said, I'll have to find out what happened. The SOFD was there for a very long time. I hope everything is ok.
cramer said:
I'll have to find out what exactly happened, but last night I was sleeping at about 11:00 pm and my wife came into the bedroom, turned on the lights and said "I can't believe you slept through this" - she had been working at her computer. I looked out and there were all kind of red/blue lights in front of our house and our neighbors' house - a lot of fire trucks. My wife said the SOFD came into our house and checked our basement and asked whether we had any flickering lights - we didn't. It seems that a small fire started in our neighbor's house because of a power surge caused by the storm - as I said, I'll have to find out what happened. The SOFD was there for a very long time. I hope everything is ok.
Wow!
I spoke to my neighbor yesterday and found out what happened. The storm caused a power surge which caused a fire in the transformer for the furnace. The furnace is in a self-contained room and the fire department used powder to extinguish the flames. No injuries or other damage.
PSE&G is there now.
Wow!
cramer said:
I spoke to my neighbor yesterday and found out what happened. The storm caused a power surge which caused a fire in the transformer for the furnace. The furnace is in a self-contained room and the fire department used powder to extinguish the flames. No injuries or other damage.
PSE&G is there now.
Wow!
I can't believe you slept through it either... 
My neighbor said that she turned of the circuit breakers for most of her appliances and unplugged her computers after she noticed that something was wrong, but didn't turn off the circuit breaker for the furnace. Would a whole house surge protector have provided protection?
Damage reports, anyone? I saw a few small/medium branches down as early as 5:00.