Sunset in Columbia Heights, where many of the reports about the loud noise originated

Jon / Flickr

As if people’s nerves weren’t already frayed from living through a pandemic, some District denizens heard what they described on Twitter as a booming “explosion” in the area of Columbia Heights late Monday night.

The sound reportedly went off a little after 10:30 p.m., and some said it was followed by vibrations.

Was it a transformer malfunction? A manhole explosion? A cannon fired in an alley? No one seems to know for sure. Spokespeople for the city’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department and the Metropolitan Police Department say responders were dispatched to the vicinity of 14th Street and Columbia Road NW after 911 calls about the boom came in, but the responders found no evidence of any damage, smoke, or fire.

https://twitter.com/caitleg/status/1249894678889213957?s=20

It’s possible the sound came from a cherry bomb or other large firework going off. With the streets emptier than usual because of the city’s stay-at-home order for the coronavirus outbreak, such noise would have reverberated more widely than if competing sounds had partially deafened it.

But we don’t know what caused the thundering sound. “It’s a mystery,” says a spokesperson for FEMS.

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