It sounds like a killer transformer to me.
"We use a small cable that is connected to a transformer to power the system," he said.
Serious shoppers can pick up laptops at knock-down prices, although larger electrical equipment will need a transformer to work in the UK.
The Consolidated Edison station on East 14th Street, where flooding caused a transformer to explode, has brass discs about three feet up a wall confirming the waterline.
Mr. Scholey said a deputy minister in the government, whom he declined to name, had a personal transformer to heat his swimming pool and was never billed.
A device called a capacitor could be installed near each vulnerable transformer to effectively block currents from entering the transmission lines.
He points out the elephant trunk-like lines supplying air, concrete and accelerator, the huge orange nozzle from which the stuff splatters, and the structures that come out "like a Transformer" to direct it to the right place.
Just after 8 30 p.m., officials said, the power surge caused an electrical transformer to explode at 525 Washington Boulevard, a 14-story office building that opened this year.
But after tenants began waking up in the morning and turning on appliances and radios and fans, a power surge apparently caused the second transformer to blow a fuse about 9 a.m., Mr. Marder said.
The 4-inch-wide power cables will snake 400 feet through underground conduits, including a couple of 90-degree bends, from a transformer to power distribution equipment inside the substation building.
Initially, managers said that the earthquake, whose epicenter was only about 10 miles from North Anna's reactors, caused a circuit breaker on a transformer to open, cutting off outside power to the plant and causing the shutdown.
