This is a clip of a 500,000 volt motor operated disconnect at Southern California Edison's Lugo substation near Hesperia, Calif. This disconnect is NOT designed to open under load. There is a switcher that is intended to open the circuit and then the disconnect opens up right afterward. The switcher has had a history of one phase failing to open. When this happens, the disconnect opens with one phase still energized. Since it's not designed to open under these conditions, there is no arc suppression, and the result is quite spectacular. Because of the history of failures, every time this switcher has been opened, a video camera has been set up to record the event. This time, they got it. The arc ends when an upstream circuit breaker is opened. The "wow" at the end of the video says it all.