Here is a prime example why some power outages take so long to restore. Us Lineman don’t just flip a switch and TA-DA the lights are back on. Sometimes one problem develops into another extending the outage time significantly. Trust me, we always love an easy fix and I am sure the customers do to.
A Day With A Lineman #18
More Than ExpectedIt started with a customer calling in about flickering lights. More often than not it’s on the customer side of things. Yet, we do our do diligence and head out and verify that everything on our side is good. No loose or dirty connections, a bad ground, broken neutral… While on my way there, dispatch calls and says we have calls coming in from down the line farther. Their power is out. They are all connected to the same phase. So not only are a dozen or so houses out of power but all the farmers pumps shut down too. No water for those crops. Thank God it isn’t 100F yet or they wouldn’t be too happy. As I got closer I could see pickup trucks leaving a dust cloud behind them as they frantically went to investigate what was going on with their pumps. Then they see me and they put 2 & 2 together and the dust settles. Yep, the power is out guys
First I need to find where the line is open. Pumps behind me are on but pumps in front of me aren’t. Well something with this OCR (Oil Circuit Recloser) must be wrong.
As you can see, the yellow handle on the side is UP. This means that the contacts inside are closed and power should be running through it… should be… With a high voltage volt meter I check the load side of the OCR… Nothin’ No power. This happens from time to time and it’s typically just the handle getting a little sticky. No big deal. I open it and call for some help to look at all the power lines beyond this. We have to go to every single pump bank and get eyes on all spans of wire looking for issues. If they were in a straight line on the road this would be easy, Instead it’s driving along ditches and around fields making my way though the maze.
Of course it has to be the last transformer that feeds a house 10 spans from the end of the circuit. Someone driving down the road had came in contact with the service wire that goes from the transformer to the house. They tore it completely down and were no where to be found. Ripping the service wire from the transformer damaged the internals to the transformer and caused the OCR to trip. Honestly we were expecting to find a bird nest of some kind but boy were we wrong. Time to get another guy coming to bring a transformer out.
After clearing the bad transformer completely from the line, it’s back to the OCR to energize. I operate the handle and… nothin’… when the contacts close inside you hear a Thunk sound. I didn’t hear that. So I opened it again and closed again… nothin’. CRAP! I call the guy at the shop who is grabbing a transformer to hold on because we may need a new OCR also. Let me try and work some magic on this thing. Using the hotstick as a bat, I beat on the sides a few times and gave it a few hits on the bottom. Then I operated the handle violently with my hotstick, open-close-open-close-open-close Still nothing!! Believe it or not, I have had something like this happen before and all it took was a couple hard blows to the bottom of the OCR and it closed in fine and we haven’t had a problem with it since. Weird.
Now we have an OCR to change out in order to energize everyone else but that one house. Good Greif! We always energize the most people we can, the quickest.
After changing the OCR and energized everybody but one house, it was back out to the highway, down the road a few miles to change out that transformer and fix the service wire. Like we initially were gonna do until that OCR crapped out on us.
Watch out!! Splatts is on the controls!
Thats right, a full remote control LineTruck. It was my first time operating it and WOW was impressed!! No chair to sit in, no controls to stand behind and twist your next to see what you are doing. You just walk around where you have the best view of things. How cool is that!!! Not to mention how smooth the motions are on it. No herky-jerky motions… just smooooooooth. This new LineTruck is something else. Anyway back to the job…
Lineman always appreciate good ground help. After landing the new transformer I became the ground help. Anything they need, I track it down and send it up the handline ASAP. It’s all a team effort with tons of communication.
As the homeowner sits in a lawn chair watching, I repaired the damaged service, then sent it up for the guys to connect to the new transformer. Within a few minutes we were happy to hear the customer’s wife pop out of the door and yell,
Perfect! Now all that is left is to put all the tools away and make our way back home… So much for an easy one…
Some lights flickering turned into a whole lot more than expected. Just goes to show, we never know exactly what caused the outage and it can turn into a shitshow real fast.
I hope you enjoyed coming along on an outage call and you learned a little something on the way. Stay safe out there and stay away from any wire that may be on the ground. Call your local power company and stay away.
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