When there is a power outage and the neighborhood loses electricity, I noticed a lot of car alarms go off. Why does that happen?

Question

When there is a power outage and the neighborhood loses electricity, I noticed a lot of car alarms go off. Why does that happen?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Probably a transformer going pop. Transformer faults are often the cause of outages (or can be caused by a larger outage) and can make a pretty impressive kaboom. The shock is likely to set off nearby car alarms.