Posted by Person, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2012 at 11:27 pm

Same, heard some sort of explosion/bang noise outside in the distance. I'm guessing something blew, but the system had a backup in place that had power back up and running. Glad the power came back, last time something blew(that I vividly remember) was in the middle of the night a couple years ago and power was out for a couple hours.

Posted by homeowner, a resident of the South of Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2012 at 11:27 pm

Yep... same thing happened here... there was also a loud bang that sounded like it came from the area around Charleston and Middlefield or east meadow and middlefield.

Posted by MK, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2012 at 11:27 pm

We experienced the outage also and heard a loud "explosion." We live near the YMCA.

Posted by another person, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2012 at 11:43 pm

I also live near the YMCA and it happened. The boom sound was pretty loud. Rumor is that it was a fallen lamp post.

Posted by JC, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2012 at 11:55 pm

I thought my lightbulb went out, until I heard from everyone that the power went out. My family said they heard a boom too, (as did my grandma who lives in Colorado Park apartments) though I didn't b/c I was showering. It came back on after a few seconds so I guess it wasn't serious?

Posted by Anon., a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2012 at 12:14 am

What time was this … my computers rebooted about an hour ago for no reason and the stove clock is blinking. All the rest of the lights and stuff are still on. I am in the Crescent Park area.

Posted by Mozelle, a member of the Ohlone School community, on Feb 24, 2012 at 12:59 am

I had the same experience, near Ohlone School. It fixed the Internet connection problem I was having. It did sound like something blew.

Posted by buffula, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2012 at 3:45 am

Same here. Everything went dark with a clanging buzz 4.5 hrs ago at 2315. Power only out for about a minute. Sounded like it was on my roof. Wondered if it was an animal on my power line or tv dish. Power came back on. Been fine since....other than blinking clocks.

Posted by MidtownMom, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2012 at 6:37 am

Loud boom around 11:30pm .. power went out for a minute or less .. though long enough to reboot / rest systems. Close to YMCA ..

Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2012 at 11:10 am

I assume that this was a transformer blowing somewhere, and the power was diverted to a backup. It happened at a time when our family was just settling for the night and got everyone up and wide awake again for another 30 minutes.

It would be nice to know more details though.

Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2012 at 3:26 pm

PAW

Many people seem to think that this power outage and the large bang had something to do with the death on the tracks last night.

Please can you clear this up and let us know if these were connected and if not, where the bang originated.

Thank you.

Posted by city says, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2012 at 2:33 pm

The city web site says:

"Thursday, February 23: At 11:15pm a faulty transformer switch caused a one minute power outage throughout the entire City. Power was rerouted and restored immediately. Crews isolated the faulty switch and will be replacing it."

Web Link

Posted by city says, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2012 at 2:35 pm

P.S. If the time on the city report is correct, the Caltrain fatality at 10:10pm was more than 1 hour earlier.