NSEC cleans up oil spill from burning transformer

 

SOUTHEASTERN WISCONSIN — The wind came through. It was if somebody pushed me in the back.

Jim Phelps describes the moment the 100 mile an hour winds swept through King Court subdivision in Burlington.

He was caught outside with nowhere to go.

“Stuff was flying. I grabbed a hold of the post of the gazebo, squatted down and put my head down,” he said.

He says he could hear popping and snapping in his neighbor’s yards.

“Something blew up on one of the poles, I saw a big glow,” said Phelps’ neighbor Greg Skrundez.

“The transformer exploded, so we had a fire in our backyard so the car was the least of our problems,” Skrundez said.

His house was directly in the path of the winds. In his front yard, a tree uprooted, crushing his car. In the back, three toppled 35-foot pine trees and a burned out patch of grass from that fire ball.

The winds were so strong last night, just blocks away from Skrundez’s home, part of the roof of the gym at Karcher Middle School blew off.

Crews worked all morning, trying to secure a temporary roof. Today was the eighth grade dance, in the gym.

That gym is facing around $150,000 worth of repairs. Good news though, there were no reports of injuries as a result of the storm.