The fire moved fast.
By the time Kendall Steinhardt and her husband evacuated their six children in three cars, the power transformers had already started blowing up in their Indian Trail neighborhood.
But as smoke billowed up to heights of about 80 or 100 feet, she estimated, the family realized they were surrounded by bumper-to-bumper traffic in a sea of cars as far as the eye could see. Steinhardt recalled her husband “bawling,” afraid for their lives…