So the result of this is that 80% of our house has no electricity. My partner was hooking up a brand new Samsung dryer with a cord purchased from Lowes. He plugged the cord into the wall outlet when the other end was not connected to the dryer. What happened next was a flash of light and what sounded like a gunshot. I believe the energy jumped from the end of the cord to somewhere in the wall (left a gnary black mark on the paint).

The breaker reveals that all the switches are still flipped on, and turning them on and off again yields no results. Our lights are just totally out. Obviously beyond my scope as a nonprofessional; I just want to know what even happened here and what repairs are gonna look like.