Author -

A 3 foot long log, about 9 inches in diameter, tumbles end over end in the air, just missing a utility worker in his bucket??

I don’t quite believe it, but I saw it happen a few days ago in Eastern Kentucky, after an 80 foot tall oak fell, broke a power line and came to rest against a steel cable-supported phone cable. It was this cable, perhaps 100 yards long and stretched some 10-15 feet from its resting (taut) position by the oak, that provided the energy to send the nearly 150 lb log into the air as it was carefully being cut by the utility guy.

He had cut off the end (top) of the tree down to about 18 inches past the cable, and then very carefully started to cut the trunk on the lower side of the cable. He cut about 1/3 down from the top side of the log and very gradually cut from the bottom – reaching as far to the side (perhaps 4 ft) from his bucket. I think he and I were mostly thinking of where the trunk was going to fall, and failed to realize how much energy was stored in the stretched cable. (I was just a bystander.)

I hope the others can take this example, discuss it with other utility people, and hopefully prevent a serious injury from an analogous situation. In this case the log just brushed the arm of the utility guy and glanced off his bucket; it could have been much worse.

What could have been done differently? He could have cut 6 inches on either side of the cable, making the (flying) log much smaller. And if we had been really good at anticipating, we could have tethered the log so that only gravity would pull it down and not the cable send it up, but I doubt many of us would have foreseen the magnitude of that upward force.

Thurman Wenzl CIH

Subsequent comments to the above posting:

Date:

22 Sep 2002

Time:

23:19:08

Comments

In reguards to the "Flying Log". In last Januarys "BIG ICE" I had a mammoth Hackbery tree split, primary was down when we got there, secondarys ( #2 CU) were in the Bell and cable, hackbery laying across them. We did'nt want to cut the secondarys thinking the poles might break ( ice still on everything) if we caused any whipping,so we cut all we safely could of the branches and still on relief. The limb was 18-20 in., so we took a sling, wrapped phone, cable and secondaries,(allready together) put a pair of half inch blocks with a long line on them, connected the lower end to a tree stump, pulled most of the slack out,and tied off the line to a fence. We then repositioned the bucket truck, laid the boom out towards the mess, in the least dangerous angle we could get it into and cut. When the tree finally let go, things jumped a bit, but held.We then pieced the log off, let things settle down and then slowley let slack into the blocks, up they came!When it was all off, I swung back out, removed the sling and then started putting wire back up. H. V. man in K.C.

Date:

21 Sep 2002

Time:

20:14:54

Comments

The last idea makes the most sense to me. I have done that in similar situations and it works well. Just snub the tag ropes off with a few wraps and you can release them at your leisure.

Date:

16 Sep 2002

Time:

23:51:55

Comments

flying log, hey here's another idea, tag and hold the cable that the tree is laying on. Take the stored energy out of the equation, just a passing thought from a passing journeyman lineman.

Date:

16 Sep 2002

Time:

17:30:35

Comments

I had a situation similar to this some years ago. I had a large branch come down and lay across the three phase about 30 feet from the nearest pole. The branc was still attached to the tree and was resting parallel to the primary. I trimmed as much weight of the branch as possible. I got to a point where the only thing supporting the branch was where it was still attached to the tree and where it was resting on the primary. I went to the next pole in line and cut down all the secondary. This left the bell cable...and the primary as the only other wires on the pole. It looked to me if I cut the primary down, the branch would swing past the bell and land on the ground. I moved the bucket ovet the field phase and cut it to the ground. Then I move to the centre phase and cut it. Finally, I cut the road phase and that phase went off like a gun, and that branch swung down and missed the bell.

A case of plan your work and work your plan.