There were several brief power outages within a half-hour period Sunday afternoon. The Murfreesboro Fire Department received calls about a transformer exploding on Thompson Lane near the Rivermont Apartments. 

Once on the scene, fire officials indicated that the exploding transformer was physically blown from the utility pole. In addition, power was totally out to building K of Rivermont Apartments. Fortunately, no passersby were hit by the debris.

As the transformer was failing, Murfreesboro Electric's SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) was automatically attempting to restore power to the customers around that area (Riverview, Thompson Lane). Each time the computer driven system secured a workable path, the exploding transformer would create another issue.

The electrical malfunction also created numerous computer glitches throughout the impacted area. One of those resulted in the traffic signal on Thompson Lane at Haynes Drive going into "flashing" mode. That brought the Murfreesboro Traffic Control group out on a Sunday afternoon as well.

And while these issues were multiplying, Murfreesboro Police received calls of motor vehicle accidents on Sulphur Springs at West Northfield, South Church at Indian Park, as well as on Cason Lane. The weather at the time of these incidents was raining with the temperature near 40.