"transformers blowing up"
i think they were just arcing, not exploding, i saw one short out during an ice storm. it lasted less than a minute-like the ones in the fort worth storm video. it was daylight and looked more orange , it looked like and sounded like a very large arc welder, which it basically was.
but it was a pole transformer and the new york one was a substation transformer-500? times larger.
the one i watched did not "explode" , when it was done it looked like normal, if they explode i think that is a different issue.
fyi -i am not a lineman or anything close