Author -

Date:

06 May 2001

Time:

20:40:14

Comments

Had a close call when the other day during a wind storm. Our crew, (crew leader and myself) got dispatched to a single all out on a transformer at the end of a single phase rear lot line. It was just starting to get dark and we drove past the street. when we pulled over to turn around a fire truck was at the intersection of the street we needed to be on. The fireman told us we had a tree burning on the line and the tree fell on a pole, broke it and the fire went out. They pointed "the house with the group of people by it". Now since it was getting dark and everyone who lives on this line is standing outside waiting for us to show up I couldn't tell which house he was pointing at. They left because the fire went out, so we pulled up in front of the address we got the ticket for and went out back to see what the problem was. The crew leader took one side of the fence an I the other, after following it for one span I could see where it was going down so I told the CL I was going back out front to make better time. As I rounded the front yard I saw a tree crew pull up at the location of the down tree. As with any storm you get the questions like, how long is it gonna be, the wire is here, I heard it over there, why are their lights on and not mine, from every Tom, Dick and Harry. So as I got to the tree crew we went in the backyard together (3 of us). Sure enough a huge pine broke and fell on a transformer pole, I bent down to see what size transformer it was and then turned around to talk to the tree crew when I thought I saw reflections of the orange beacon lights of the tree truck. That when I puckered up, The wire was still hot about ten feet from us. I yelled to my CL that the line was still hot and we slowly back out of our stupid situation. We got to the fuse location and pulled open a 100 amp fuse. To this day I still don't know why we didn't go to the fuse location once we knew the line was on the ground, it is something we always do. Remember Brothers Keep Your Heads In Clear and its Not Dead Until Tested And Grounded>