Ok, so I know I just posted a few hours ago, and this new post is in no way fiber-related, but I thought I’d share the fact that I got some dedicated knitting time this evening. You see, I had been sitting out on the porch earlier this evening, and almost immediately after I had posted that last entry, I saw a huge flash of light on the horizon, followed by two huge booms, followed by our power going out. Within the next few seconds, all my neighbors started spilling out of their apartments, and we all saw this huge billowing black cloud of smoke coming from somewhere nearby.

We called the fire department (I kept getting a busy signal – how sad and scary is that that 911 can give you a busy signal? – but someone eventually got through), and all the while, the smoke was getting thicker and blacker, and the sky was getting darker and darker as a result of all the smoke.

After we knew the fire trucks were coming, we (my neighbors and I) headed down to the street to see what was going on and figure out if we were at all in danger. It turns out that lightening struck a power station nearby and blew out a transformer. The sub-station and many of the surrounding trees caught fire, and as a result of the transformer blowing, several more down the line were over-burdened and also blew.

After about 20-30 minutes, we heard that the emergency crew had the fire contained (mostly), and that we were in no danger. Still, the entire grid was without power (including all of the traffic lights, which was bad because (a) it was dusk and (b) the roads were wet because it had been raining all day). Still, when I left to go back to my apartment, there were at least 7 fire trucks and 2 ambulances at the scene, along with several police officers blocking off the road and redirecting traffic.

So, I came back inside, lit some candles, and started ripping out the glove. The power came back on about 30 minutes ago, so all-in-all, we were only without power for 3 hours. Not so bad. No lives were lost (at least last I heard), and I got some knitting done. What an exciting evening!

News Article: http://wral.com/news/local/story/1238201/