A Day With A Lineman #30 ~ Down Goes The Locust Tree

Down Goes The Locust Tree

Yo Hivers!! Your Hive Lineman is back with yet another episode of A Day With A Lineman. This is the 30th installment and I hope you all have enjoyed an inside look at what it’s like to live the Line Life, as we Lineman call it. Plus maybe learn a thing or two about what we do to keep our section of the power grid up and running.

As I suspected my phone rang. Someone called in about the road being blocked by a tree and wire laying on the ground. Yep, it’s still raining… lovely!! Like Superman I head into the closet and change into my FR clothing (flame resistant). Kiss my Wife and kids goodbye and head out into the wind and rain.

I ended up having to take the long way around to the location of the downed tree. The county had a big road widening project going on and had both ends were blocked with scrapers, excavators, and dump trucks. On the other hand this was good because I could verify that the Recloser (circuit breaker of sorts) did indeed open and de-energized the line. That is one of the first things we do is verify where the protective device is and if it is open or closed.

Trying to get there as quick as possible wasn’t that easy. The gravel road was so saturated I could feel the back end of my 17,000 pound bucket truck washing around. It felt like something was pushing the back of my truck side to side. Not fun!!

Found it

The Fire Chief was there and the County had dispatched a few guys to come and clean up the tree. Typically we handle this but I ain’t gonna argue.

I met up with the other Lineman and we came up with a game plan. We can disconnect a jumper and head back to the recloser and energize the line. This way there is only 1 house without power. Anytime we can minimize the amount of people without power we do so. Plus we have to make the site safe for us and any other workers.

With the line opened we headed back to the recloser to energized the line to our open point. The stupid thing would stay closed. They make a slight thunk noise when they close. When you close it and a fault happens the thunk is followed by a louder slightly different thunk. If that makes sense. Lol. We weren’t getting a fault it was just something with the recloser.

Pro-Tip

When this happens there is a little trick. We take our hotstick and beat on the bottom of the recloser. Beat it into acting right and stay closed. You can’t just tap it… really bang on it.

Yep, That Did The Trick

Now it was back to the fallen tree to install a protective ground to prove the line is indeed de-energized. Once this is done then it’s safe for the us and the county workers to start working.

While the County was cleaning up the tree we had to find where the wire was broke or damaged and fix it. Then we had to untangle it and lay it out to identify the phase and the neutral. Yes, it’s still raining and the wind is still blowing. The wind made things really uneasy because that wasn’t the only locust tree there. There was a whole line of them reaching close to 80 ft tall. Honestly we were wondering if another one was going to fall over. Pretty sketchy!!

Well now we wait… these county guys were taking forever. They need to get the tree out of the way so we can get the wire up. I initially planned to hook my truck winch on it and drag it to the side, get the wire up, energize the line, then clean up the tree. But they said that they would handle it so…

It’s approaching 11pm and I got the call at 7:30pm. Once the tree was cleaned up we made quick work of getting this wire up and to proper sag.

A few swings of the hoist handle and a couple automatic slices and this wire was up and ready to be energized. After we remove our protective ground of course.

It’s still raining!!

The last house on the line was the only one without power for an extended period of time. When connecting the jumper I removed earlier they were back on and their yard lights lit up their property. Then it was back to the shop to drop off my bucket, hop in my personal car and head home. I got home about 12:30 am and had to be up at 5:30 am for work the next day. It always takes me a little wind down before I can fall asleep. I finally passed out around 1:30 am. 4 hours of sleep and back at it the next day… That’s part of the Line Life.

Stay Clear of Downed trees and powerlines. The wire could be tangled in the tree just right and still energized… you just never know. So call your local utility whenever you see something like this.
Thank You
And
Stay Safe

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