In the early morning darkness of the second official day of summer – Tuesday, June 23rd – Woodstock residents in the vicinity of S.E. 42nd Avenue at Ramona and Knight Streets were awakened at 3:20 a.m. by loud explosive booms, intense flashes of light and geysers of sparks, as well as an odd screeching noise.
As they crawled out of bed, they saw a number of firefighters at a house at the corner of Ramona and 42nd. It turned out that they were going in and out of that house because its electrical box had “basically exploded”, due to an enormous power surge, which could have kindled a fire, although in the end it did not.
Meantime, other firefighters walked around on the nearby unimproved rights-of-way with flashlights, looking for any possible other fire dangers due to the downed lines…