A pole and an exploded transformer remained in front of the Butler Township home of Bryan and Donalee Thomas on Friday afternoon. The couple lost power and several trees in Winter Storm Avery.

Bryan and Donalee Thomas of Butler Township and their son, Benjamin, watched the lights in their 100-year-old farmhouse flicker a few times before going to bed during the storm Thursday night.

Awake at 3 a.m. Friday, they heard the eerie continuous cracking of ice-laden trees in their woods before a loud bang caused them to look out the window.

“There was a big blue glow,” Bryan said. “It was the transformer laying in the middle of the road. We called 911.”

Township workers arrived to put some cones around the burnt transformer and wires, which remained untouched in the middle of the road all day Friday.

“People are driving over the wires, and they're still attached to my house,” Thomas said. “It's crazy.”

The couple stayed warm overnight Thursday caveman style.

“It wasn't too bad last night,” Thomas said. “We've got two dogs.”

A camping heater fueled by small propane bottles kept the family warm Friday, and Donalee's contraption that converts a car cigarette lighter to an electric plug provided some luxury, albeit in the passenger's seat of their SUV.

“My wife was able to curl her hair, so she was all excited,” Thomas said.

The Rev. William Gilligan, pastor at Nixon United Methodist Church in Penn Township, did his best on Friday morning to stay warm with his wife, Amanda, and young son and daughter at his home on Crestmont Drive.

“We were cuddled up under blankets and started a fire in the fireplace to try to keep warm for a while,” Gilligan said.

They used bottled water to brush their teeth, but had no easy way to heat up water for washing up.

His children, ages 8 and 10, had their own concerns in the 19th-century surroundings.

“They were more concerned with not having access to the Internet and what they were going to do when the batteries to their (electronic) toys died,” Gilligan said.

So Mom, Dad, the kids and the family dog hopped into the car and headed for the church on Airport Road, where the power was still on.

“The kids are charging their devices and so am I,” Gilligan said.

The family opened the church to others without power who needed a place to warm up and use the bathroom.

“Don't take things for granted,” Gilligan said.

Read more in the Butler Eagle.

Amanda Gilligan cuddles up for warmth Friday at home with her son, Samuel, 10, and daughter Amanda, 8. No electricity meant no heat on a no-school day in Penn Township and the South Butler School District, said their dad, the Rev. William Gilligan, pastor of Nixon United Methodist Church on Airport Road in Penn Township.