Warm winds melted the deep snow causing water to flood over the road. On a rural highway dividing the orchards, traffic is sparse in the middle of the night. With each vehicle driving through the puddle of water, it was spread up and down the highway. Thin layers of ice began to form on the asphalt until there was a 1/4 mile long sheet of black ice. With the rest of the highway being bone dry, this sheet of black ice was bound to cause some sort of accident
At approximately 1:15AM a long haul semi-truck driver had his cruise control set headed for his destination. Clear skies, dry pavement and temps just dipping below freezing… just cruising along. The instant after hitting the puddle his truck jackknifes sending him out of control. The weight of the trailer pushing him off the highway, down the embankment and into a 65 foot pole carrying 115,000 volts. The pole exploded into pieces, the overhead wires slapped together, resulting in 3 substations losing power…. That’s when the Day of a Lineman begins.
Unaware of what that annoying sound was at 1:30AM, I woke up to realize that it was my dang phone ringing. Either it was an old Lineman buddy getting all tuned up or it was work… Yep it was work… A few outage calls had come in from different feeders from different substations. That’s odd, typically when the crap hits the fan we will lose one whole feeder. Not random customers miles away from each other, fed from different substations. While getting dressed for the cold, I woke up enough to put it together. The 115,000 volt transmission line feeding the two substations must be out. One thing I can’t do is jump to conclusions as to what is actually wrong. It makes you look for a certain cause of the outage and can result in you totally missing the true problem. A narrow minded focus is never good.
After a 45 minute drive in and out of phone service. A text comes in saying that Bonneville Power had lost their 115,000 volt line that feeds one of our substations. Now this could be a problem on their transmission line or ours. If something happened to ours it trips the circuit breaker at Bonneville Power’s substation. Their transmission line feeds one of our substations then we tap off of that and feed another substation and 2 massive river pump stations.
It didn’t take long before the other Lineman that got called to the outage saw flashing lights off in the distance. Just after he called me to let me know what he saw and where he was headed, a 911 dispatch message came in saying that there was a wreck involving a semi-truck and power pole. Welp, I think that just may be the issue we are having.
After driving slowly through the puddle of water across the highway, I stopped at the crash site. When I got out of my truck, I about slipped and fell on my ass. This section of highway was a sheet of ice. The traffic control people from the department of transportation were setup after the water on the road… DUHH that’s not very smart. Get the people to slow down while they are on the ice instead of before!! I told the Highway Patrol officer to get them to move down the highway farther so we don’t have someone crashing into us while we are working.
Surprisingly his truck didn’t look too bad considering what he had hit. The driver was perfectly fine also. He stayed in his truck like he was suppose to and waited for us to show up and make things safe for him to get out.
In order to get to work on getting this semi-truck free from the mess, we need to isolate this section of our 115kv line. Also by doing this we can have Bonneville Power energize their line which will energize one of the substations that was out. With 3 more lineman in route, the 2 of us head opposite directions to open several switches in order to isolate this section of the 115kv line. 2 river station switches and a switch at each substation. Then we met back up at the crash site to get this truck freed up and start cleaning up this mess.
By the time the 3 Lineman showed up with the new pole and materials we had everything ready for the new pole. Unfortunately the semi-truck wasn’t going anywhere. His air lines to trailer were busted. So without unhooking from the trailer he was stuck there. His truck and trailer wouldn’t be in the way so it’s not too big of a deal for us. If it was in the way, we would have found a way to drag them both in the clear of our work area.
The pole had broken off at ground level and a 12 foot chunk was stuck under his truck. In order to get the pole butt out of the ground we used the auger and dug down on each side to loosen the dirt. Then ripped it out of there with the winch line of the line truck. 8-1/2 foot deep hole coming right up!
While I held the wire up out of the way for the line truck boom, another lineman went to the adjacent structures to make sure nothing was damaged.
Time to drill some holes and get the insulators mounted to the pole. The old porcelain insulators weigh about 100 pounds a piece. The new polymer insulators weigh 1/3 of that. Those porcelain 115kv insulators are back breakers!! I’m glad we don’t use those heavy things anymore.
With the pole all framed up, it’s time to stand this 65 foot pole up and stick it in the 8-1/2 foot deep hole.
Using the 95 foot bucket to hold one wire out of the way, the pole is inserted in the hole and gets plumbed straight.
We use a hydraulic tamp to compact the dirt around the pole. It connects to the hydraulics of the line truck with a set of retractable hoses. The internal ram with a foot attached to it goes in and out at a rapid pace. Wether shoveling dirt or tamping it’s always a good workout. With the pole in the ground, straight and dirt compacted, the last thing to do is lift each wire onto the insulators and bolt them down.
It’s now time to put the fire in the wire. We all gathered together and came up with a game plan to energize the line. We discussed each step we wanted to take ensuring we didn’t miss something. The first switch energized the the 115kv line itself. Then the 115kv switch was closed energizing the rest of the customers. We saved the river pump stations for last since they aren’t pumping right now.
Now for a little drive by to admire our hard work. I also noticed that the Department of Transportation had done some work getting the water off the road. They also had a bunch of trucks spraying de-icer over the sections of black ice.
We ended up with one section of houses that still didn’t have any power. A fuse had melted in half when we energized it. All those heat pumps coming on at once was too much for the old fuse. A simple fuse replacement and the heat was back on.
Now for the 45 minute drive back home. I better get my head straight. It’s my daughter’s birthday, it’s 11:00AM and I have to take her and 4 of her friends bowling at 2PM. Taking 5-12 year old girls bowling after working since 1:30am might be a bit challenging. Time to shift from Lineman mode into Daddy mode.
Another episode of A Day With A Lineman has come to an end. Thanks for taking the time to read a little bit about what Lineman do to keep those heaters running and lights on. As you can see, it’s not as simple as flipping a switch. Until next time, stay safe and stay clear of downed powerlines.
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