Last Weeks Ice/Snow Storm....

[Trbl639]

Last Saturday, I got the call to go to Jackson, MS, to do Damage Assessment / Scouting for Entergy which was anticipating lots of trouble............word was they had 3200 lineman and support personnel standing by.........had a little sleet/freezing Sunday morning, but the temp hovered around 33 the rest of the day and it was just rain, but if that temp would have dropped 5 or 6 degrees, I might still be in Jackson!

Got paid by the hour to drive down there 6 1/2 hrs form home, the we sat all day Sunday, getting Safety orientation and such, then sat the rest of the day at the motel, waiting on a call.got assignments for the next day and then Monday EMI had 18 customers out statewide, got released at noon, but if we wanted to, we could stay athe the motel and get paid till 6, then drive home the next day and get paid....kinda a No Brainer!!

Got 39.5 hrs, .5 hr shy of getting into some OT Jingle, sitting around, out maybe $50 for meals, and snacks, and will get $44 back for my meals.....not counting my booze money:D for Monday night

Met some good old school linehands and made some new friends too!!

I can stand on my head for another storm and Paycheck like that!!!!

[Boomer gone soft]

I worked the holiday storm '00-'01. Entergy had us drive from Wichita to Monroe, LA ahead of that ice storm. Didn't hit there and had us drive to Little Rock, AR the next day....stayed there for a few weeks, but made it home on Christmas Eve.

[joe b]

I worked the holiday storm '00-'01. Entergy had us drive from Wichita to Monroe, LA ahead of that ice storm. Didn't hit there and had us drive to Little Rock, AR the next day....stayed there for a few weeks, but made it home on Christmas Eve.

i was there with you my friend made it home for christmas and then 2 days after christmas we got the call for a major hit this one was a good one i think we stayed around 6 weeks on this one worst ice storm i ever worked went from arkansas to oklahoma to texarcana to louisiana and can't remember were else but it was a hell of an ice storm that winter!!!!!!!!!!!

this one last week could have been another if the temp would have been a few degrees lower!!!!

[Trbl639]

This one was my first storm since I retired.thgought it was gonna be a good one, but different, instead of having to fix the mess, all I was going to have to do was find it, put it on a map, and then someone else was gonna have to fix it!!!

The 2000-01 storm was the worst I had ever worked and I had worked some bad ones in Arkansas before.....I was a Tman for Entergy in S Arkansas and they called me in off vacation a couple days before it hit.......had 3 days off, from December to March..........worked it all in my home area, first time the company had put me in a hotel, at home, ever...I was out 9-10 days the first part of that storm and 5-7 the last half!! My area had 8500-9000 customers and some 220+ miles of line, there were over 200 lineman in my area the first part and almost 175 on the second part..we put new wood in the same hole twice in 2 weeks.........because it was my area, they brought in a management team from N Louisiana to help run things, but the Mgr, didn't hardly want me out of his sight or radio or telephone contact, had to start earlier than the rest of the guys, and quit later, trying to stay on top of what was going on and where to put crews to keep things going smooth, made for some long days!!!

Now days....Like I mentioned earlier...I don't fix it, I just do Damage Assessment/Scouting, and somebody else fixes it!!:D:D

[joe b]

It was the worst and where my career ended because of a fuking idiot driver

damn dude what happen????? i did see some crazy shit while i was on this storm we was working rural areas mainly all copper of course and we went to this little country store for a bite to eat we had just got their power on after a couple of weeks had their coolers on by gen. anyway to make a long story short after we ate we went to the counter to buy tobacco and the lady said you know what take what ever you want and she meant it anyway i had 3 30 packs of beer 3 cartons of cigs. 2" reciever hitch that i still have hunting vest few flash lights and more that i can't remember......... and loaded that shit in one of my bins on the bucket!!!!

also alot more crazy shit i can't remember but damn what a storm:p

[Pinco]

Getting paid to sit ain't bad but it sure makes for a LOOOOOONG day, week etc...

[joe b]

Left home week after Thanksgiving came home Christmas left the day after to Fort Smith AR and ended in Muskogee. Not one of us was injured the whole time even working 8 miles of US 69 hwy over those bridges over Lake Eufaula, in a 70mph zone with semis zipping by on ice. We moved onto the old highway with very little traffic and this idiot got pissed because we were holding up traffic backing bucket trucks into ditch's. When they released him to com through he hit me head on parked on the side of the road.

If you will remember this ice break is the same one that killed 7 non-union lineman and not one union lineman. One was killed backhanding a low hanging 34kv line that was hot. So much for training.

The impact slide my pickup about 40' backwards and torn ligaments muscle and tendons loose in shoulders back neck arms, some that couldn't be fixed.




i damn sure do. i remember that like it was yesterday few of them were red simpson guys talking about making you crindge. correct me if i'm wrong but wasen't there an accident on some 500 kv stuff as well????????

anyway sorry to hear about the idiot ****stick that ****ed up your career probably some body going into dtzzzzzzzzzzzz because the power co. did'nt have his power back on

we were in sercy,bebe,hot springs thats just a few man i bet we worked in 20 different towns not including big cities, or the 3 other states around ark..

hey man holla anytime good talking to ya

be safe brother!!!!!!!

[Trbl639]

I remember hearing about that accident Steve, but sure didn't know it was you!!!

Some plumb stupid mistakes were made by hands during that storm!!!!!!

We had one accident in my area during the storm, young hand climbed an old pole while clipping in some new #4ACSR, replacing rotten #6 copper..........wasn't there when it happened, but was close..........long story short, the pole broke below the ground and he rode it down....messed him up pretty good, took a while to get Medical people to him and get him out, cause they were in the boonies, but he recovered and was still climbing last I heard!!!

[Trbl639]

Getting paid to sit ain't bad but it sure makes for a LOOOOOONG day, week etc...

Yessir it does!!! But the money was good!!:D