She blowed up real good

[superpugable]

hope ur inside u could of died from breathing hazerdous smoke

[KarlosPayalos]

ПИЗДАТО ОДНАКО)

[JoshdaROCKSTAR9999VS]

We had so much fun with candles the night this happened.

[VonBonnK]

Somebody needs to hire a new relay technician...should of tripped out way before this.

[smurfboywv]

Do the power companies insure these sub stations? Thats a very expensive equipment malfunction.

[cassius969]

Only in America.

[ffjsb]

@cassius969 Yeah, a lot of other countries don't have electricity. What a stupid statement.

[mattfirebird]

I bet it was a squirrel.

[Barnekkid]

@mattfirebird Don't have em.

[bigredc222]

Electric is COOL.

[sethbower11]

WOAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!

[rojblake82]

Anyone near the burning tranformer will be killed and burnt to toast.

[Crpetersena]

I'd love to be the technician who has to put that mess right again, many hours of work, total job security. What an explosion, wonderful video of a lifetime, ya can be proud of what you have captured.

[vic365]

Awesome vid.

I wonder what's so flammable at a power station? Transformer oil?

[bassboy923]

@vic365 a transformer is filled with basically veg oil, for cooling

[Crpetersena]

@vic365 IN the old days it used to be PCB's Poly-chlorinated biphenyl's in the transformers, and to this day they are still widely used, but heavily regulated. Now days they use mineral spirits , sort of oil that is usually pretty stable stuff, non-flammable. However; make it hot enough like arcing from a substation having a very bad day , and the endothermic properties of the oil can only go so far before the become an exothermic. (Fire, explosion) Job security for the technicians..

[signal44]

Holy bat crap batman!

[StephenHardyMusic]

the title of this video is perfect lol

[79Yamato]

Hmm... still arcing on 0:40 after the fireball?

[eeikman]

When I worked for a substation department in Lubbock, I figured the bus differential relays would trip if something like this happened. Obviously not.

[G8GT364CI]

I grew up about a 1/4 mile from a main power station and remember hearing several explosions, also buzzing during a short circuit one morning, woke me up at about 5 am it was so loud.

[SubwooferBox1000]

surly you woul;d call the fire department wouldn't you?

[tall32guy]

This happens to transformers more than you would think. Usually when it happens, more than likely the whole substation is a loss.

[Anubis557]

And there was no more internet.

For the following month.

[PilotVBall]

It sure took a while for the power to be turned off. Makes you wonder what these utility workers are really up to when they're supposed to have everything under control!

[DragonFlyback256]

@PilotVBall

The arcing seems to happen between the transformer and the low side switchgear. The low side switchgear obviously can't do anything with it, while current sensing equipment on the upper side still doesn't sense it as a short. An upper side breaker trips later as the transformer overheats and some of the insulating oil boils off.

[3ggt3]

yeah pretty smart...put water on it. Anyways, don't show this to Al Gore!

[NathanH5]

The fault was on the lower voltage side of the transformer, possibly a bad bushing on the bus-bars. Looks like the transformer overheated, and started spilling out is coolant which is mineral oil. Unfortunately, as this starts happening the camera goes up in the air, off the transformer, so hard to tell. This happened due to faulty equipment, not the weather. The upstream breakers/reclosers should have sensed this and opened the fault.

[qqqdb777]

@NathanH5 -- Hawaiian Electric, operator of the transformer, reported that "water seeped into Makaloa 2 and triggered an electrical fire that destroyed the transformer and its switch gear"(Honolulu Star-Advertiser 24 Dec 2010, "Power dodgy at Ala Moana").

Sorry the camera goes up in the air at your moment of truth, but there was a 200-foot fireball at that particular juncture in time that distracted the videographer's attention :-)

[NathanH5]

@qqqdb777

Interesting!! Did H.E. ever find out why the arcing faults within the transformer were not sensed by upstream reclosers and stopped? I do hear what sounds like a loud bang or thump just as the arcing stops, obviously the power being shut off...possible phase-to-phase fault just before the power went off? Generally phase-to-phase faults trigger the recloser to open much more quickly than a phase-to-ground fault. Your opinion?

[rojblake82]

@qqqdb777 To be near high voltage, electricity is highly dangerous and to get a lethal electric shock is not nice you end up dead and burnt to toast.

[mc63100]

Ha the fire department was just a minuet too late

[DMahalko]

Well the fire is an "ionized plasma" which is conductive, and so is causing shorting across all lines it crosses, so any breakers or fuses in the fire zone are bypassed. Also the shorting through the plasma makes the plasma hotter, so you get a bigger conflagration even if there is not much combustible fuel source nearby.

[briggsjos]

Looks like a volcano coming out of a power distribution center :D

[erokn09]

so a little rain caused this???

[qqqdb777]

@erokn09 : I wouldn't even call it rain, I'd call it what I originally called it: a heavy drizzle. Knocked out power at the nearby Ala Moana shopping mall for several hours, with repeated outages throughout the following week, leading to some pretty p.o.'d merchants.

[erokn09]

@qqqdb777 wow, I hope they can fix the damage and find a better way to prevent these meltdowns. I live in a city, and in the winter all the power lines buzz. it is normal but there are reports of fire and shock injuries. I would never of thought this possible until i saw it.

[cubg1]

Looked like the transformer was venting presurized oil when the fire erupted.

[FordLTD94]

It didn't like the fire truck ;)

[CTylerA434]

ddddaaaammmmmm.

[vlasktom]

I wonder how high the electric bill's gonna be this month

[Auriam]

1:21 they finally cut the current and the fire instantly shrinks by half. Wow.

[pastorgeorgem]

Now Thats a FIRE



[bolmsp]

told u more than once to unplug that curling iron

[bonecrime]

So many of videos like this one. Why don't the breakers trip? Why don't any fuses blow? Are the breakers and protections systems set up wrong for the short circuit current, or don't they have any? Either way it seems really dangerous and reckless to be honest.

[quantumbits]

@bonecrime It is possible for a fault like this one to not exceed maximum load. It is also possible that the fault protection failed.

[quantumbits]

@quantumbits To explain...there are basically two types of faults. One is a short circuit; meaning a bridge across the line. It may or may not exceed maximum current draw. it may just be considered a heavy load demand and it may not trip breaker or fuse. The other type is a series fault, meaning a break in a circuit or switch and that break is arcing. A series fault does not draw more current and cannot be detected by a breaker or fuse.

[bonecrime]

@quantumbits That's true, wich is why most of our customers want arc guard systems in the switchgear we make for them. :) But if there is a short, the breaker *should* trip, otherwise it's not set up properly imo.

[lokeycmos]

that was awesome!

[zekebauer]

No lightining. Just heavy drizzle = short circuit.

[GoodrichTires]

@zekebauer which=boom

[cornpucker1]

@zekebauer

[Crimescene26]

Man that is pretty crazy, was there any wierd things going on in the atmosphere before this happened other than lightening?

[ekwlee]

man..i slept through that whole damn fire...my gf just told me oh the power went off...then went right back to sleep..only to wake up to smell all the smoke and see the street closed off :-p