>>I think what happened is the 130,000V that the substation transformer failed to handle arched over to the other side and got into the medium voltage (thousand of volts) that runs down streets. And this rightly blew the shit out of some poor pole transformer that was definitely not built to handle 138kV.

(Prev bread) This anon nailed it. Transmission-level extremely high voltage arcing into lower-voltage power lines, blowing the every-living shit out of every transformer it encounters. No ET, no DEW, just simple physics.