Lightning sure took out the one on a power pole near us a few years back.
Yeah, I saw them popping all over the place in California just before 3 a.m. as I was driving on 405 during a large earthquake aftershock. Spectacular purple light.
Then, about two months ago, while all our neighbors were hunkered down in tornado shelters by our home in central KY, we were trying to drive in the scion xBox and watching chunks of buildings fly by us (and the wind started pushing us off the road). I told my wife that even if it was night we’d know the tornado was getting close as we saw transformers blow.
And then the one about 100 feet from us blew in a spectacular ball of pyrotechnics. I crammed it in reverse.