Explosion?

[purgatori84.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else hear/see anything at 3:55am? I heard a kind of popping sound that woke me up, then a really low, loud rumble that made my house vibrate. This was followed by a fire truck heading toward Ball, and cops talking to a lady outside my place talking about a white light :/

Comments

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

yeah. I decided it wasn't (more) gunshots in my groggy state.

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

I've decided to call this the Ball Square Boom.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

not being anywhere near it, my guess based on description would be a transformer blowing....

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

Yes, we heard it. We couldn't see anything out our windows but stayed awake a while pondering ...

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I heard loud noise that I was entirely unable to identify (possibly because it was around 4am and I wasn't very smart). Also near Ball Square. Guess it's time to look out the window and see if I see anything.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

is there something going on with the power in general? we spent several hours in the dark Saturday when a transformer blew over by Vernon & Central Sts. and there was this wierd off/on/off cycle just before it blew.

[ron_newman]

That used to happen to me all the time at Day and Orchard streets, during heat waves. The lights would go off, on, off, on for about 10 seconds, accompanied by loud gunshot-like sounds. Then the lights would go off for good. NStar finally installed a better transformer, and this stopped happening.

[ron_newman]

I heard it too, way over on Day Street, but have no idea what it was.

[somervillegirl5.livejournal.com]

I also heard it. It sounded like it was coming from brown school area! Didn't see anything on news.

[ron_newman]

I just now called 311. The lady who answered says they've gotten a lot of calls about this. The city does not know what caused this sound. She says the city inspected the area (around Pearl Street in East Somerville) and did not find any obvious damage. She speculated that it may have been a blown manhole cover.

What neighborhood are you in, where your neighbor saw a white flash of light?

[purgatori84.livejournal.com]

I'm on Foskett, right off Willow...it's super strange that no one knows!

[ron_newman]

Even stranger that you and other folks here are talking about the Ball Square and Brown School neighborhood, yet the 311 operator said Pearl Street on the other side of town.

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

This. We are on Willow. The noise was very close to us & Brown school area.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm in the general area of Pearl Street in East Somerville, and I heard nothing at 4am...granted I was asleep, but it sounds like this was loud enough that it woke multiple people up. Mysterious!

[ron_newman]

Patch article, doesn't add much new information:

http://somerville.patch.com/articles/mysterious-explosion-noises-wake-ball-square-residents-cause-unknown

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I woke up suddenly about that time, but no idea why.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Someone flying over the city crossing the sound barrier?