A little rust and a lot of heat. Lesson here, don’t ignore flickering or dimming lights.
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Looks like your meter is located inside the home. Are you going with a smart meter or do you have the option to opt out?
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It’s outside. When I took the photo, the damaged meter had been removed and placed on the workbench.
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Thanks for the tip and reminder @bcawhern1. 
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Thank you Brian for this post as I was concerned about my mom’s house, when the boiler kicks on the lights dim and I have been meaning to ask an electrician if it is something to be concerned about. I will have to check into it, maybe we will get more replies on this thread.
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Good idea I’ve been hearing about these flickering light issues coming from bad meter connections in my area as well.
I’m sharing a flickering light issue we had that didn’t come from the meter. When running the washing machine, the lights would dim in coordination with the washing machine motor operation. It turned out to be a bad neutral connection at the service point.
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Interesting. As you can see, my issue was also at the neutral connection in the meter can. Side note, you could hear it buzzing.
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My mother had a similar issue that turned out to be a bad neutral connection as well.
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I read a Mike Holt piece that said loose connections are the number 1 cause of house fires.
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Where was the issue, Brian? Load side or line side.
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Which makes the case for AFCIs.
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And combo CAFCIs that would detect an arc across a conductor break/gap.
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Line side.
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In this case AFCI’s wouldn’t help because the problem is upstream from the AFCI device.
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I believe the number one reason for lights and power flickering in a home is a loose neutral connection. Maybe Robert could verify.
My previous home would flicker all the lights with the agitator on the washing machine. I checked neutral wiring in the panel, at the washing machine, couldnt figure it out. Had an electrician come out, and it was a loose connection at the service neutral at the pole on the edge of my property.
As soon as he replaced the splice, it was fine.
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Or torque wrenches. Or, like Leviton just introduced, spring clamp connections for receptacles. Or, licensing, guilds and training? Nah.
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well, since all of those can fail, it helps to have a safety device at the end of the line. humans make mistakes all the time, even professionals. and safety devices fail, but it’s nice to have them, even if you don’t rely on them. i have three on my skydiving rig, never once plan on using any of them. i still have them though.,
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Loose or arcing service neutrals can be hard to find because as Brian’s case they’re often located within the meter enclosure which usually is sealed or locked. Also if you have a city water system it is possble that an open neutral can go undetected because the neutral current can return on the water pipe through your neighbors service.
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Couple of years ago we lost one whole side of the panel. No 220 and half of the 110 didn’t function.
Turned out to be a splice between the transformer and the meter base.
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I’ve seen that happen too. Better to loose a single 120 volt leg than to loose the neutral. An open neutral can destroy 120 volt electrical equipment.
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