We thought we were well on our way to spring like weather. Boy were we wrong!! Temperatures took a dive down below 20 degrees Fahrenheit dropping about an inch of snow down in the valley. I guess we aren’t completely done with winter quite yet. In a couple days we are suppose to be dropping down into the single digits as far as temperature goes.
Anytime we get these frigid temperatures around here, us lineman have to head up into the mountains and check for snow and frost loading up on the powerlines. I remember 9 years ago when I first started working here. It was my first winter and literally knocked snow and frost off the lines everyday for two weeks. On the same sections of powerlines over and over again. That’s how fast it would build up. If we left the lines alone the weight of the snow and ice build up would end up breaking the wire or the pole itself. Creating a bigger problem then we would like to deal with.
First thing in the morning we got a couple calls from some members about their lights blinking… this tends to get a little annoying because 90% of the time we go look for hours and find a damn thing. Now when the calls come from up in the mountains with the snow we are having we know something is up. Most likely the snow & ice unloading from the powerlines causing then to gallop and slap against each other.
You can see on this section that some of the snow & ice has unloaded. That wire is smaller in diameter that my pinky and I don’t have fat fingers.
On my way up the hill the snow loading kept getting worse and worse. So I just went all the way to the top and began working my way back down the hill. I didn’t know the snow was still that deep at the top as I hiked into the last couple spans. I was sinking up to my waist in spots. Then I saw a picnic table which gave me a better idea of how deep the snow was.
The photo is a bit deceiving because what is on top of the table isn’t near as deep as the snow around it. The table top is about waist high and the snow on top of the table most likely had melted off in prior days.
Luckily it didn’t take much to knock the snow & ice off the lines. I use an extendable hot stick to reach up to the 40 foot tall poles and hit the wire to unload the snow & ice. Sometimes you barely tap the wire and all hell breaks loose. Both the energized wire and neutral wire start galloping like crazy, slap together causing a nice little firework show then the power goes out.
Trying my best to avoid an outage I tried a new technique. Gently lay the hotstick on the wire and shake it really fast. Though I do prefer giving the wire one good WHACK and move onto the next. It was actually kind of fun to watch as little chunks of the snow & ice fell off.
As the snow & ice gradually fell off the line, the line slowly came back up to normal sag height. Thus avoiding any wires from galloping and slapping together.
After about 4 hours of knockin’ frost, as we call it, my job was done here. It was nice that the county plowed the road for my trip down the hill. On the way up it was about 6-8 inches deep.
If you were to slide off the road here there would be no stopping you until you hit the bottom. Your trip from Lewis Peak road to Scott road (down in the creek bottom) would be really fast. Though one may be tempted to his Mach 10 on a sled…
Even though the mountains could define use a bit more snow pack this year, I wouldn’t be sad if them temps started warming up a bit…
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