It was a raging fire — the turret above Patrick McGovern’s pub in St. Paul engulfed in flames.

Inside, flashes of light and fear, with no light and no heat.

“Lots of explosions, the lights went off,” recalled Shauna Allen, who rents an apartment above the pub. “There was lots of bright light, lots of banging, lots of live wires hitting the building.”

A noisy, violent blackout along West Seventh Avenue just before midnight.

St. Paul firefighters believe the blaze was ignited when downed live power lines came into contact with the pub.

“One of the wires over on Chestnut here, it came off the transformer,” says owner Patrick Boemer. “The wires were severed, so they were flying around.”

Pub staffers add that people ran from the building when they saw the flashes and that nobody was inside when the fire started.

Xcel Energy says 9,200 customers initially lost power, with the outage spreading to several blocks, leaving bars and other businesses in the dark.

The only light came from responding emergency vehicles.

“Fire truck after fire truck, police cars, the whole thing. Water freezing on the floor,” says Logan MacGowan, a neighbor. “They let us know that somebody hit a light, and the light hit a power line.”

Authorities suspect the outage was triggered by a transformer fire and downed power lines at Irvine Avenue and Ramsey Street — more than a half mile away.

Police say around 11:45 p.m., a Honda pickup flipped over, hitting the electrical equipment and impacting the power down the street.

“It kind of goes in a circle, it’s a grid,” Boemer explains. “This is the weak point of the grid, so these lines exploded and that’s what hit the turret up there.”
 
Just below that turret is Shauna Allen’s apartment, where she woke up to flashes of light and explosions outside her window.  

“Startling, to say the least; shocking,” she declares. “You don’t really know what’s happening at first, and you just try to stay calm, and I just got to the middle of my apartment and away from everything I thought would catch fire.”

Xcel Energy says most customers had their power restored within 90 minutes.

Boemer says there’s some fire and water damage to the upper floor but notes the pub was open by Saturday afternoon.

He adds he’s grateful for the quick response by St. Paul firefighters.  

St. Paul police say they’re searching for information about that Honda pickup and its driver.  

Meanwhile, Allen has some ceiling damage right under where the turret is located, and her windows, walls and couch are covered in soot.

She’s moving to another apartment temporarily, while the damage is repaired but she says she too, appreciates the work of fire responders and says she’s glad to be alive.

“I just feel so lucky that help got here when they did,” Allen says. “This could have been so horrible.”