ice storms

[loner]

living in so cal i can only imagine the misery these people are going thru.closest experience i had was being in vernal utah for christmas years ago.it was 40 below in the late evening and at noon it warmed up to 0 .have never been back and will never go back.good thing the company i work for (pacific gas and electric) is doing all it can to fight global warming,or else the entire country will be like this.(according to them)

[Squizzy]

Must be a bad storm its even been mentioned on the news here all those working on the restoration take care...

[PA BEN]

The problem with ice is that it brings everything down. Trees go down through lines, the wt. of ice on the conductor it’s self will being the line down or go phase to ground, poles go down, you name it, ice will cause it. Then after you get the main feeders and poles up and hot, then comes the back yard service that the iced up tree took out. This ice storm covered a large area of the mid west.
It’s long, cold, wet work, stay safe out there and lets all make it home for Christmas.

[IronLine]

Anyone know what the situation is around Northern Texas? Headin' out to some podunk area north of Dallas/Ft. Worth for some restoration and construction in a couple days, any info to help me prep would be great

[graybeard]

Just came back from S central IA and in some places the neut was almost touching the grnd. Darn good thing there was no wind. Only heard one one guy getting hurt by falling tree limbs so I think that thats not too bad. He wasn't really hurt so I hope every one out still fighting battle stays safe.

[WCLR]

Ice storms suck!

Bad thing is, the people in OK./KS. are on t.v. drilling the power companies because power is out for weeks. The lineman are working well over 16 hour days without much sleep and busting their ass. They deserve better than that. I just hope they are treating them better in person than they are on t.v.

We went out to Arkansas in 2000/2001 and they were the nicest I've ever ran into. I hope just across the line they are the same way.

[Electriceel]

Us workers should not be taking the drilling from customers, the customers need to go to the power companies and ask some questions.
Mainly Why are the utilities not starting a program to get the areas that are lined with trees converted to underground systems.
These states have ice every year. At some point surely management will figure it out.

[graybeard]

Caught a story on the news Sat. am where the crews working in Oky were getting their copper wire and tools for resteration were being stolen off the trucks. Said they were even stealing the wire laying on the grnd. Lucky no one got killed.
Ifeel lucky that everyone was really nice to us and thanked us for the work we were doing to get them back on.

[T-Saw]

I just got back from southern Iowa , and everyone that we talked to was VERY appreciative. I had people bring me cookies , and candy , and offer to make me hot coffee, etc. etc. I even had a guy offer to drop off a 12 pack at the hotel for the crew. He had it in his hand , and wanted to put it in my truck , but I told him Thanks but if management saw it I would be fired, so he said he would drop it off at the hotel. Unfortunately , we were " between " motels at that point so I wasn't sure where we were going to be.
Over all we had pretty good duty, mostly cuttin trees clear off the line, and reenergizing. We found very little primary down. Tons of services though. The ice was thick , but I think every problem we encountered was caused by trees going through stuff. ( Now that I think about it , we had one splice that had pulled apart , just from the weight of the ice.)
Some of the local crews said the customers were getting ornery, but we had nothing ,but good luck with customers. I wish the people around here were as easy going .