Author -
Submitted By -When I was under the thumb of Uncle Sam working as USAF lineman I was awakened one night by the steady beeping of my pager. I reached for the light next my bed which didn't come on so searched blindly for the phone. During a flash of lightning I found and called fire control. I was informed that most of base housing was out of power. I fumbled in the dark and got dressed somehow. Went to the shop and met my partner.
We proceeded to patrol the line in search of the cause. Suddenly the radio crackled to life asking about or ETA for restoring power. I said it shouldn't be much longer since we had patrolled the line and didn't see anything. Then our Operations Major got on the radio and asked me if the Wing commander was affected. I told him with a superior tone that he was on circuit 5 and circuit 4 was the one that tripped. He replied that was good because the Commander was conducting some very high level meetings and wanted to know if he should go to generator back up. I told him no the Storm had passed and we would have power restored shortly. When I arrived at the housing sub it was completely dark because the distribution transformer feeding the lights in the sub was on circuit 4. Can you picture where this is going. I reached behind the seat to get my flashlight only to find the batteries were dead. My partner Jay handed me his bic lighter I went inside the cubicle and by firelight I found circuit 4. I turned the handle
to the left to reset it so I could turn the circuit on, When I did I heard that horrible sound of the breaker opening. Quickly I closed the breaker realizing that circuit 5 had tripped and not circuit 4. I reset and closed circuit 5 and walked back out to the truck only to find the radio alive with questions about what happened.
I lied and told them it must have been a tree limb that caused the circuit to dump for a second. Thank God they didn't know it was an underground feeder. The next morning I was called into my O-6's offices to explain what happened. Before he became an Officer he was lineman and was little curious about how a limb dropped an underground feeder. I stood there with a dumb look on my face when he said next time make sure you know which feeder your resetting and dismissed me.