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Article #9249New Year's Eve idiocy - an eyewitness report
From: Jeff Winslow
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 1991 08:37
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 1991 08:37
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New Year's Eve brought the usual assortment of firecrackers, skyrockets, M-80s (I guess - bright and LOUD), and so forth. As I was enjoying the show (and giving thanks I live a good mile away from the jokers with the M-80s), I was startled by a green flash from a nearby substation. This thing was BRIGHT - so bright it effectively washed out all other lights for dozens of blocks on either side. The flash itself appeared to be about a half a city block wide. There were two of them, about 10 seconds apart. And funny thing - a lot of people's lights went out. :-) Anyway, at the time I assumed some fool had thrown a wire rope into the substation, or something like. But later I wondered - with so much powdered metal in many pyro formulas, and particulate matter (conductive metal oxides?) left after their explosion, is it possible that a skyrocket of some sort exploding among the wires would alter the conductivity of air enough to let such an arc happen? I still think the cable explanation, or something similar, is most likely. It was quite a climax for the New Year's Eve "display"! Jeff Winslow
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!wrgate!midas!jeffw From: jeffw@midas.WR.TEK.COM (Jeff Winslow) Newsgroups: sci.electronics,rec.pyrotechnics Subject: New Year's Eve idiocy - an eyewitness report Message-ID: <4655@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM> Date: 3 Jan 91 08:37:20 GMT Sender: news@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM Reply-To: jeffw@midas.WR.TEK.COM (Jeff Winslow) Followup-To: sci.electronics Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 19