Night Foreman Larry and I were both outside working with a vehicle that had been towed to the shop. We were trying to get it started so I could drive it into the shop instead of having to push it with our Dodge. At some point, we both heard a kaboom that sounded relatively close. We didn't know what had happened until we came back into the shop and realized all the lights were off.

The kaboom we heard came from a transformer on a nearby electrical pole. When it blew, the shop went dead.

The fact that all the lights in the shop were out wasn't the problem.

Our primary concern at that moment was getting all of the garage doors closed.

With the power out, the electric motors that operate the doors wouldn't work. All of the garage doors have a safety release built in specifically for this concern. But none of those releases had been used in a long time. We were about to find out how many of them worked.

We also discovered that the outage was specifically with our building. The Riverbend Research Labs across the street still had power. The outage occurred around 8:00 PM while it was still light outside. From that moment forward, Larry and I concentrated on getting the garage doors closed. Thankfully, most of the safety releases worked with little drama.

When the sun disappeared for the evening, I tried to take a low-light shot of the shop with the new camera. Jamie's small flashlight provided enough light for the camera to function.

I played with the camera settings and managed to get a brighter picture.

I walked across the parking lot to the transformer that sits along Riverbend Road and found the culprit.

Unfortunately for this poor guy, he stepped on something he shouldn't have.