A Day With A Lineman
#37
I know it does seem pretty bright outside for someone to be asleep at the wheel, cut across on coming traffic, tear down about 150 feet of chain link fence, swerve back over and smash into a power pole. The fact is, you are exactly right. This happened around 6 PM if I remember correctly. Hey, I have slept a few times since this innocent, cut me a little slack would ya. This post has been slowly simmering for n my notes app for gee I don’t know... a month a so. I get busy with life and certain things get put on that back burner to simmer.
It’s never a good thing when any sort of vehicle collides with a power pole. Most of the time the vehicle doesn’t leave under it’s out power and the driver has a hefty bill on their hands. Not to mention the dangers of potential downed Powerlines and other electrical equipment that could put the public in danger. Thank goodness nobody was hurt during this accident and only a couple houses were without power for an extended period of time. The pole was still standing despite being sheared off just below ground level, wire is still up in the air and just the fuse for the transformer was blown. I was able to get a photo of the car from the Lineman who was the first one there.
This happened on a rural 2 lane highway as it cuts through a small town, with homes on both sides and the speed limit at 45 MPH. This time of year harvest is just kicking into high gear. (Remember this Post has been simmering for around a month) Which means there is a good amount more Semi truck traffic on this road than usual. This will come in to play shortly. I wouldn’t call it a “busy” highway but it has a pretty consistent flow of vehicles driving on it.
When I received the call about a car hit pole and was told of the location, I knew I wouldn’t be the first one at the accident. Dang it!! I like being the first one there sir some reason. To get there, I had close an hour drive and this would give the other Lineman some time to relay the message to me what I need to grab on my way there. You see first I had to get to the shop I work out of, grab whatever truck I need, then drive all the way over there. By then we should have a good list of material to grab and I can swing into the local shop there and load up. Funny part is, this accident happened about 1 mile from the local shop. So is we forgot something or had an unexpected surprise one of us could scoot over there real quick and grab whatever we needed.
I was able to get this photo from the first Lineman that showed up on the scene. This little car did some pretty good damage. Especially after taking out a bunch of chain link fence.
When I first got there I saw that the First Lineman on the scene grabbed the Line-Truck (Digger-Derrick) and grabbed a hold of the pole to keep it from going anywhere else. Honestly you just never know when or if something wants to finally break loose. You can only guess the amount of stress that is being placed on adjacent poles, the ties that hold the wire to the insulators, the phone cables going across the highway, possibly rotten portions of the pole... Traffic is still flowing down the highway at this point, I’m glad we had enough room to get off of the highway without causing any sort of traffic problems.
After putting our heads together and coming up with a game plan to fix this mess, we had a little time to take a look at the damages. You see we couldn’t get out and block a lane of the highway without the proper traffic control signs and flaggers in place.
First thing we noticed was the car was facing the opposite direction of traffic when I drove through 150 feet of chain link fence and broke this pole off just below ground level and pushed it over about 3 feet
I got the feeling that this person wasn’t going 45 mph but when an object weighing 4-5,000 lbs is traveling at that speed, there quite a bit of energy behind it. Let’s just say it can destroy a lot of stuff before it is stopped.
Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a Semi truck pass under the overhead phone lines that cross the highway. The semi’s exhaust stacks just missed the phone lines!! They were close enough to hitting them that is caused them to sway back and forth a bit!! If a truck just a foot or so taller comes through here, it would surely catch these phone lines and God only knows what could happen.
I quickly got my climbing tools out of my truck, grabbed a rope, climbed up the broken pole, and tied up the phone lines. All I did was make the attachment point of the phone lines to the pole a couple feet higher and tighten them up. This gave us about 4 feet clearance over the next few semi trucks that cruised through.
When the pole broke we lost a couple feet of height, therefore lowering the phone lines. With the pole leaning, it out that much more sag into the phone wires.
It’s Go Time!!
Now that traffic control was set up we cold get the trucks setup in the road and get to work. A couple of guys worked on getting the broken pole ready to get removed. Disconnecting the service wires, removing the transformers, and removing the cable and phone lines.
While they were working on that, another Lineman and I went to the shop to get a pole framed up and loaded on the truck. Depending on the situation, sometimes we can’t split up and we all need to be at the location to make the scene safe.
Welp, I hope they are done wrecking things out, so when we get there we can get this Line-Truck setup and start digging a hole to set it in. It is so stinking humid that our shirts are soaking wet just from framing this pole. It’s about 80-85F and the humidity level is... gross!!!
As we approached the traffic control area we could see that they had removed the transformers and the timing worked out pretty good. Just a couple more phone wires to drop out and this broken pole is just about ready to be ripped outta there. Now the wires on top are still energized at 14,400 volts and the only people out of power are the 3 customers connected to those transformers that were on the pole.
Digging a new hole ended up being an absolute nightmare!! The first foot was nice sandy soil, then we hit cobble stone or what we call river rock. The auger on the Line-Truck just keeps grinding its way through the rock, pulling out a few shovel fulls at a time. This is going to take all stinking night!!!
It’s already getting dark and the sound of the auger scraping and pounding against the rocks is not only loud, but staring to get a little annoying. We just keep grinding away gaining a few inches at a time. Every now and again we would have to reach into the hole and pull out some huge rocks that were preventing the auger from digging any further. “Hold my feet!” as one of the Lineman dives headfirst into the hole to remove a big rock.
As we get close to “Having a hole”,(when the pole hole is deep enough) the operator keeps digging while we take off and do some switching to de-energize the overhead lines. We could probably do this energized but it would take twice as long and add one big hazard to the situation.
With the Powerlines de-energized and our protective grounds in place, I can untie them from the old broken pole and use the jib on the bucket to grab all of the wires and hold them out of the way. The old pole can be removed and place out of the way, then the new pole can being set in place. When there is nothing in the way the operator can just stand it up and slam it into the hole.
As the new pole is being plumbed, I notice we had some spectators sitting in the front yard enjoying a couple cold ones. Wait a minute!!! There has to be some sort of law against that. You can drink ice cold beers infront of Lineman who are working. Especially when it is this nasty and humid outside. Oh man, how I could go for an ice cold beer at this point and they are just rubbing it in!!
Once the pole is set in the ground and plumbed straight, I get to work getting the wire attached to the insulators. When I’m workin’... I’m workin’!! Constantly moving and communicating with the other lineman about what is going on and what we need in the air. So this doesn’t leave much time to capture photos, my hands are full of tools and I’m busy Doin’ Work. Getting the transformers bolted to the pole and wired up, the house services pulled back up to the pole. Also communicating with the traffic control people when we needed them to stop traffic for us when we were pulling up wire from the other side of the road. Getting after it!!!
This has to be my favorite part. Working at night. I have no idea why but I love working at night. There is something about it that keeps the gears turning in my head, watching everyone double and triple check themselves and the other guys, working in the dark with only spotlights creates more of a challenge, and having fun group of guys to work with. Now that is a piece of the Line-Life right there!!
I did manage to screen shot a photo from a Snapchat video one of the guys sent to me after he got his grounds installed. I really wish the quality was better but hey, what do ya do
I have no idea what time it is at this point... wait... I believe this night I got home around 2 am. So it was close to midnight when we completed the replacement of this pole and energized all the customers. Some people were out for an hour or so, while the customers they got their power from the transformers on the pole that got hit were out much longer. That is just how it goes sometimes and we can’t do anything about it.
With all the customers energized, things are once again well and good in this part of our service territory. Now it’s time to get the trucks out of the road, clean up our mess and give the traffic control guys a hand gathering up all the road cones. Then head home for the... night or morning.... umm how about an early morning nap.
After working all day coming home for about 45 minutes, then going back to work until 2 am, makes for a pretty long day. That is just another...
Day With A Lineman
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A Day With A Lineman
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