About five yesterday evening I was trying to get to Ace Hardware from the south side of Route 14 in Crystal Lake.
On the way east, I had noticed the traffic light was out at Walgreens.
A fire engine from the nearby Virginia Steet Road Station was blocking South Main Street north of Route 14.
Going north on South Main, I noticed a fire truck blocking the way.
Traffic was snarled around this major intersection.
I decided to go through the Best Buy parking lot behind Arby’s.
As I reached the short cut through the parking lot next to Best Buy, I saw a policeman directly me east.
An electric line was down.
A fire blazed in the bushes next to the stop sign at Main Street next to the entrance to Best Buy. Click to enlarge any image.
No way he was going to let me get close to this electrical fire.
The view from right next to Ace Hardware. A police car was blocking this end of the little parking lot next to Main Street, too.
I drove around the shopping complex to Ace’s parking lot, got out and walked toward Main Street.
Another policeman was blocking the north side of the parking lot and cut through next to the Thai restaurant.
The Crystal Lake Police blockade near the back Jewel shopping center entrance.
More cars blocked Main Street sought of the shortcut to the Jewel shopping center.
I saw that one of the high tension wires carrying electricity to the shopping area was hanging.
Part of the broken electric line dangled in the air.
One end was visible in the air.
Gravity took the other part of the broken line down, too.
The end of the line on the pavement was blazing away.
The other one was blazing on the asphalt.
The policeman had gotten out of his patrol car by the time I finished shopping.
After I finished my shopping where the clerks had no idea what was going on outside next to their store, I went back to see if anything had changed.
Waves of heat can be seen rising from the small conflagration.
It hadn’t.
A closer view of the fire.
There was no repair crew.
Note how hot the wire is.
The fire still burned.
Lots of smoke blew from the burning asphalt.
There seemed to be more smoke than before.
Secondary roadblock at Congress Parkway.
As I headed north to go home along Crystal Lake Avenue, I passed a secondary roadblock.
A Commonwealth Edison crew was on the way to downed power line as I was heading home.
The only vehicle that was allowed through was the Commonwealth Edison truck.