Well done! I’m a Transmission System Operator down in Texas. Distribution feeders are no problem to de-energize quickly. It doesn’t affect anyone but the customers. De-energizing a transmission line and substation is a little bit more complicated. For one a power flow study has to be performed on the system and the interconnection as a whole. De-energizing that line could cause other lines or equipment at other substations to overload. Not to mention if the other end of that line is connected to neighboring utility the dispatcher might not even have control over it via SCADA and will have to contact the dispatcher at that utility to open the breaker. There are A LOT moving parts that go into operating the grid so when he calls and it takes a few minutes to open line the dispatcher is doing a lot of checks before he does so. In my opinion. It helps to have a questioning attitude sometimes. If that switch is burning in the station I might be ok with letting it burn until I get all of my checks done and talked to the area RC. If it was a matter of life or health then yes of course it would be dumped as fast as I could make it happen. This is strictly about transmission equipment only.
good point, the grid is an interconnected network so big and fast changes will affect many generators and customer loads. Sometimes there are no easy answers
Having the electricity shut off for hours or a couple of days is a whole lot better than the main equipment being destroyed and being without electricity for weeks.
I know the feeling. During an extreme weather event, my grid operator announced they would be deenergizing everything in 5 counties in the path of the storm. The grid operator to the north of us didn't. Our HV lines were down for 3 weeks and the distribution lines took an additional 2 months to get to 80% restored. The operator to the north lost multiple substations & a generator. They took 4 months for a duct tape solution and still weren't rated for full capacity 2 years later
@@nathanielhill8156 wow i could not imagine that. In Texas during our freeze, we sat for a whole week no water or power, could not imagine being 3 weeks without power.
@@GamingAppleTheFirstwe were blessed during Snowmageddon. We never lost power , but did lose it for two days when Hurricane Laura came through. Thankfully, we had a generator and plenty of gasoline. My husband prepared by getting enough fuel for three days. He keeps stabil in it and rotates it to the cars every two months. He has a small battery powered pump so he doesn’t have to try to pour out of those crappy new spouts.
I appreciate that the dispatcher acted first, then checked on you. Process is very important. He knew you, and knew you wouldn’t do something radical without urgent reason.
I'm a up-to-600 volts kind of electrician, my problems are that easy to find only when FPE panels are involved. Had a dock lift cord cold shorted on a 20A double pole (208 3ø) that was still live after violently arcing itself in half. Not all Stab-Lok breakers are that pyrotechnic, but the good ones and bad ones look identical until stuff goes wrong. 😂
@@kdawson020279 It is wild to me that things like this are still possible.. like you would think the system is so basic even the knock offs would work too... it's almost dumb to fail.
As a retired electrician in the States (not a lineman) I have the highest respect for all Utility workers especially the high voltage linemen. Where I live, those people appear almost immediately when there’s a loss of power after a severe storm.
Totally agree! In Itasca County, MN they have been so helpful and cooperative, have taken down huge trees for me that really are the property owners responsibility…. no questions asked, no charge and right on time!
@@TheAnantaSesa The head linesman and a couple guys drove the truck, went up in the cherry picker, dropped the line, cleared a couple tress, line went back up and they were on their way. This is northern MN, no underground lines to speak of all on poles. They are constantly dealing with wind and storms taking out lines. It’s what they do. Service is rarely down long.
In the 90s I was a 911 tech for Verizon in Northern Virginia. Covered about 2,000,000 subscribers at that time. My director gave me a mission statement, "Keep me off the front page of the Washington Post!" Other than that, I was on my own, unlimited budget, unlimited hours. When training my replacement 10 years later, I told them, "Sometimes you need to push the Big Red Button (make a decision, and some times literally). If you can't do that, this is not the job for you!" BTW, never made the front page of the Washington Post on my watch.
@DrakeLuce Just the reset/reboot system button. People were in fear of resetting the system in the event it would not come back online. Usually due to them either not understanding how the system worked, or due to lack of confidence in their own decision making, or both. I left the position because of a change in company management. The new management became pissed off that the clients would run any questions through me rather than through our sales team. If the sales team tried to offer a new product the next call from the client was to me for my approval. At one point, the new management told the client they were not allowed to speak with me. The client told them for $10,000,000 a year, they would speak to whomever they liked. The final straw came when my new boss lied to the client in front of me about his major screw up blaming it on me. The customer turned to me and asked what really happened. Time to go! Loved the job, but outta there! I told them I would stay for a year in the position until replacements were up to speed, but I had another job waiting in another department with management I trusted.
Good. I lost a lot of faith in 911 after a few incidents where response times were bad, and one time the call was literally not answered which was a recurring nightmare I had before the incident. Glad to know that there are people out there who are doing all they can
One needs to realize that sometimes the 911 operators were given the job of holding back the Atlantic Ocean and were assigned one teenage kid with a broom. Back in the 1980s I was tracking a training echo storm City the rain wouldn't stop. Soon every stream was out of its banks. People were calling me and asking for a police car to block off an intersection. I had to say sorry there aren't any. Many of them are floating down the street. They would say how about a fire truck? I told them the fire station in your area is flooded out and no ambulances are available either. You are on your own. About two A.M. I got a break. I got my Dr. Pepper and sat down and realized that people were asking me to send help and there wasn't any to send. Since then I've worked other incidents where there was a bad outcome. It still gives me a gut punch.
It shows his utility is safety conscious. As Aaron says in the video starting at 2:30, their procedures state that everyone has authority to cut the power when necessary and that determination is made by the Qualified Electrical Worker making the request. It's not up to the dispatcher to stand in the way of the request from the Qualified Electrical Worker. Safety first.
Dispatcher/operators don’t stand in the way of request. It isn’t our job, however we have to look at all the ramifications of just dumping a circuit. If it affects neighboring utilities, we have to make that notifications or they may respond in a negative way. Often times we don’t want to know the reason right away, all we need to know is it a threat to human life or damage to bulk electric system equipment.
When it comes to being in the position to dump thousands of customers, the trust and partnership between dispatch and field personnel essential. I’ve been in that position and it’s not to be taken lightly. Well done Bob.
Well done Bob, I'm a PSE who works in the control room - getting these calls from you folks is always treated very seriously - I was on shift when we had one come through a while back where we had to drop 50k+ properties on a 132kV supply point (UK) due to someone climbing on equipment... Stay safe out there, again well done.
Absolutely, thank you to all those people, and truck drivers and plumbers and everybody who keeps everything running. The amount of physical work it takes just to run a small flashlight, or wash your clothes... we can all flip a switch or press a button and have multiple kilowatts or horsepower at our command, and I think everybody takes that for granted. I wish we would focus on those kinds of things, which are like miracles compared to how humans lived for thousands of years, and be grateful for it, instead of arguing with each other and fighting all the time.
@@Robert-d5b1o Indeed! Our society has things a little backwards. We look up to the people we see on our phones and don't acknowledge the ones that built our homes.
Aaron this video really highlights how Linemen are unsung heroes. Traditional first responders get a lot of praise for saving lives but you guys have super dangerous jobs as well and definitely help and save people from disaster. Your professionalism is really inspiring and your content is so interesting. Stay safe out there!
You guys should be proud of job you do. You should be treated like first responders and you deserve all the respect too. As a former FF I was taught to wait for the power company and we always did.
That's exactly how safety should work. Managers, dispatchers, etc. listening to and acting quickly on called out safety issues is one half. The other is a body of staff equipped and empowered to evaluate safety and make those calls to shut down a job, or in your case, a piece of infrastructure affecting thousands and thousands of customers.
I think my favorite comment on a large outage was the outage on Black Friday. "I guess this is your Back Friday special... You don't pay for any power, but you don't get it either" 😅
happened around 35 years ago at the substation 7363 ,same situation with a big arc at the fuse, same conclusion had to drop the 69KV line to isolate the defective switch
"I need this transmission line dumped ASAP" "OK. I'll get back to you" ?! Wow. That's trust and respect. He knew either lives or infrastructure must be in imminent danger.
Yup, and then *after* the line is disconnected some basic questions "Is everyone ok, etc..." but only after. Priorities, great to watch people that know what they're doing.
What would be another choice? As an operator in front of a computer screen I can't see what's going on outside. The linemen are my eyes out there. And if you don't shut down a power line with such arc flash issues, it's only a matter of time before it fails anyway and trips out itself... probably with extensive damage, causing extensive repairs.
Definitely and following procedure. As stated in the video, the linesmen have the authority to cut the power in an emergency. Dispatch operator may not be able to see what's happening so they have to trust the linesmen to be their eyes in the field. Afterwards, when the questions are asked, if all can show they acted appropriately, then no problems there.
You made the right call. Training & years of experience allowed you to make that split second-correct decision. Open the right switches isolating the line affected with nomenclature & times for your dispatcher. Then have dispatch close the transmission line. Perfect. I bet the next day you have lots of good questions & you had the video to back you up. Here that would get you a $200 gift card & the person nominating you gets a $50 gift card. Atta boy Aaron! I’ve been doing line work for over 34 years & I have yet to make that call? I’ve seen some crazy shit. Just not in my face like that.
Thanks, Bob, as a 60-something guy in Oregon, I wanted to say thanks for all you and your fellow linemen have done to keep the lights on all over the country:)
The thought of working with electricity is frightening. I'm thankful there are professionals like you to address issues like this...even in the middle of the night during a snowstorm.
In most industries that I know of, the moment you trigger that sort of process it will trigger an immediate follow up investigation. Never to assign blame, rather to understand why it happened, was the process followed as intended, and what can be done to improve process and training to make the next response even safer and faster. Good to see everything went well as that could not have been fun.
Precisely. And we have those processes because sometimes that's the only way to realize "The controls are directly under the thing that drips molten metal when it fails" may need to be changed in future designs and / or deployed equipment.
@@MikeF1189 Exactly. RCA will tell you the how and what. The larger report looks at the why and larger how. As well as other improvements that are only spotted once you have the incident in mind.
Excellent job. You know your work. I use to work for a major water utility on Long Island. I got many a call out on nights and holidays for pump station power failures. Most were power utility failures. I got to know the electrical utility workers. And much respect for the dangerous job they had. I saw a fuse closure blow up that scared everyone at the site. Guy was in the bucket only 10 feet away. It was a cloud of smoke. And took a minute for the bucket guy to say he was ok. We had an under ground primary short that night.
After Hurricane Helene in Augusta GA recently, you all were the first heroes. Then came the roofers and now the tree removal companies. I’m not forgetting you first responders. All I mentioned travelled a ton and deserve our respect.
As a firefighter of 43 years, I’ve responded to many pole emergencies. I have the utmost respect for those guys in the bucket!!! They are just as courageous as any of us.
That is terrifying! You do your job very well. The "What the #^&$ are they waiting for?' did crack me up. I was wondering the same thing. The minutes must have seemed like hours. Thank you for all you guys do in the worst conditions. Please stay safe, and God bless.
This is where more remote capabilities are helpful. When you can just call a number on the phone and tell them what to dump and all they have to do is click some buttons on a computer. Beats having to wait for an operator to be called in and dispatched then drive to a switch somewhere miles away.
Definitely could have been bad! Eventually it would have likely cross phases or gone to ground and tripped the Highline... But the fault could have very well burned the entire structure!
@@Bobsdecline "it'll burn out eventually" :-) I've seen a few systems around here (NC) with isolation panels between the phases, I assume to limit arcs. (the smaller scale "industrial" systems have those boards to stop the errant screwdriver. I've told the story of the telco power minions dropping a wrench into a PDU... that was just -48VDC/5000A.)
@@jfbeam I have seen coper plated glass windows in two doors with a spanner that dropped 2 floors and fell across the 8 inch by 1/2 inch x two copper buss interconnecting 3 battery rooms and 4 rectifier banks on diffrent floors the rectifiers were in sets of 3 x 1000 amps (12000 amps) battery rooms had 3 banks of 4000Ah cells (36000 Ah) the spanner was never seen again and a 1 inch notch left in the buss bars.
If the fuse gets examined and the mode of failure is found, it sure would be interesting to hear some follow up on that. Not really holding my breath since the temperatures involved could easily destroy any clues. Great video by the way! Thanks for keeping us safe and keeping the lights on.
I would like to know too. I was wondering if the wet snow caused ice that span the connections on the outside of the fuse causing it to short. Salt water spray from the ocean can cause arcing on insulators in switchyards so I was wondering what the snow effect was in this case.
While I was living in Florida I was in the house minding my own business. I heard a sound which I don't think I ever heard before. To me it sounded like metal plates sliding on concrete or even super loud welding. I stepped outside and it had quit. So then I had walked down our long driveway to get the mail, when the sound came back and I think I jumped off the ground. The high voltage line running overhead on the other side of the road was producing electricity on the outside of the wire. It looked scary to me. I called FPL and got right through to the top guy and he said he would send them out right away. They must of had trucks close by because they were there in less than 10 minutes. This road we lived on was always super busy.
last time I was in Florida, a giant line broke off and went down across the highway and other roads near orlando/ disney. one of their silly mouse head towers. that made a wee mess of things that day.
As I was walking out of my condo about 9pm here in Thailand last week I saw a glow and sparks at the point where there was a connection from the street line to one of the 3 fuses leading to our transformer. I had the security guard call the local electric company, they're 3km away and it took them 3 hours to get here. Luckily it just kept glowing and sputtering and they were able to fix the drop and restore power in about an hour. They gave me the melted drop wire and I gave it to the building management the next day. I worked in solar for 5 years and have tremendous respect for electricity - thanks for your efforts every day to stay safe and help your customers!
Talk about right place, right time. Imagine you had passed that area a few minutes earlier. Great job. Great video. Love your work, excited to started my apprenticeship in 25!
Makes me think of the scene in Die Hard: "Lose the grid or you lose your job!" "Uh..Can you shut down grid 220? I got a big problem. Shut it down now!"
Glad you made it through this high tension failure . It is/was obvious when the power was cut and then you can breath and start to do work on the issue. I don't think this will be the first we will see you and the area guy this winter!? Stay safe and keep the lights on . Good work.
Wow! That's pretty scary and lucky that you caught it when you did. And definitely hear you on being able to justify a judgement call, especially when it has a huge impact on the customers. Neat snowman. Great for a chuckle.😆
That is a situation that even as a regular sparky can come up....I've had a few commercial calls where I had to end up dumping an entire building to contain a fault that was threatening to take out the entire switchgear. One memorable one was a plant where interrupting power to process was going to cause a lot of collateral issues with equipment...I told the owner we do the immediate shutdown and fix it within a few hours, or we let it burn until it takes out the entire service and you'll be down for weeks as we pull the damaged gear out and order in new gear. (At a cost of lost production and new gear in the millions.) In my position then (as with yours in this case) it was ok, do a short term shutdown of 10-20k customers or let the entire substation fault out taking days if not weeks to rebuild...which is the lesser of the two? Sounds like your utility has good folks at the top and made the right call to trust your judgement without question.
I am glad that the people like you who operate and fix these problems have the depth of knowledge to make the correct decisions when needed. My respect to you all.
Great video. It must have been a very unusual fault to have never experienced it in 21 years as a lineman. I can only imagine the sensation that you must get knowing you are about to cut electricity to 20,000 customers. Thanks for sharing your story.
We had a (something like) 50-100 year ice storm in Arkansas 20 years ago. Branches and trees all over the Southwest broke/fell on power lines. Hundreds of thousands were out of power. We were out for 7 days and on the 8th day, when the trucks from the electric company and trucks…from Arkansas and surrounding states… flooded the area and eventually showed up on our street. They were like our liberators… LOL. Everyone that could brought them coffee, doughnuts, cookies, whatever we could, because we knew they were working all day, all night to get the power restored. You guys are unsung heroes, to be sure. 99% of people don't even know you exist…… until we need you, then there you are. 🙂
great video !!!! almost every sparky hates that sound !!! i cant imagine how loud it was....especially from a transmission line.......thanks for sharing this.
We had the equivalent feeders (66kV) which were erected in 1930 in my area of Australia (In New South Wales) pulled down & replaced with 132 kV concrete poles a bit over a decade ago now so that's all been upgraded. In 1945 we only had 1 × 11 kV feeder erected which supplied both sides of the river in our town back in 1945 before a bridge was even built, the 11 kV feeder was split up into 2 feeders which supplied power to either side, the problem is that the feeder was 35-40 kilometres Long & there wasn't much in our area back then except a few dairy farms which is all that 11 kV feeder was for, to run their milking machines. So there was a 66/33 kV substation (it's now 132/11kV) supplying power to a 33/11 kV substation which is about 40 kilometres away when it was built in 1955 (it has been replaced since), it was connected directly to the 66 kV substation in 1945,but we didn't have to rely on that by the early to mid 1970's. By the early to mid 1970's that was upgraded by 2 x 11 kV feeders which were 11-13 kilometres long from our nearest major town & they installed a switched 11 kV feeder which could be used to balance the load in the grid or isolate the power if any repairs or upgrades needs to be carried out. In 2014 a 132/11 kV substation was built which took the load off that towns 33/11 kV substation because our area has increased in population & more people are having 3 phase reverse cycle air conditioners installed now. The new (now 10 year old) substation has 6 × 11kV feeder outputs for our local area !
So thanksful guys like you are out there keeping this stuff up, running, and safe! I can only imagine how you must have felt making that call. Yeah, putting 20K in the dark for ever just a small amount of time is probably something you do with the potential for consequences period! Crazy!
Being in dispatch as a high school student workong part time in IT for my local coop during a storm and witnessing a call similar to that, you and your dispatcher were on the same page and knew exactly what needed to be done, good job on keeping everyone safe and keeping the system from taking a massive amount of damage.
I remember pulling up to a 500kv sub that was pitch black with a huge orange glow where the 500/220 kv transformer bank used to reside with flames coming up out of cable trenches from burning transfomer oil, wasn't a good day when the ABB bank went from about to blow to glow.
Two questions: How long did it take to repair that issue and reenergize the lines? And, you showed a clip of a fire on a pole. How many poles have you had to change out due to fire, and how long is the process. I guess that's actually 4 questions.
We had the 69kV line energized within about 15 minutes. The sub in particular was about 8-10 hours. I've changed out hundreds of poles due to fire... Typically about 6 hours including response time and 3 hours if we use a pole top extension.
Once the blade switch is disengaged the whole fault region is isolated, so the main line can be reenergised. Inspection is appropriate, but in theory it only needs to be off as long as it takes to get to and operate the blade switch. I am no expert, but I don't think attempting to disconnect using the blade would be a good idea, even if it was accessible. It isn't designed to kill arcs that have already formed, and you risk damaging equipment that cannot be remotely isolated from the main line.
Wow - that was quite the freak thing and no bueno. Excellent work. Having the power cut ASAP to prevent further damage was the right call for sure. Kind of reminds me of a call I responded to as a volunteer firefighter years ago. We were dispatched to a 'pole fire'. Of course there's not much we can do but block things off and watch the show, but the crossarm was burning and eventually, it let go and a primary (most likely a 7200V L-N) made contact with the neutral. That was quite the show! If that substation had made it that far, with 69kV, it likely would have been a tad more 'energetic'.
God bless the linesmen everywhere. We just had power out for 2 days here in Devon, England due to high winds and the crew were out there putting poles back up when the wind speed was still about 40 mph. They were ahead of the scheduled re-connect time by about 20 hours! What a crew. Balls of steel. Thanks for your dedication.
My old man was a lineman in Wisconsin. He’d often get called out on trouble calls during and after storms, winter or summer. I know he had a friend killed when the friend “closed circuit” with “himself”. Gotta respect the work you folks do.
Nothing but respect and admiration to the folks that do this work. Beyond dangerous . Highly technical.. Abysmal working conditions on any given day. You guys are awesome!!!!!👏
Real interesting.I gotta say you guys really are the unsung HEROES!Being in the Buffalo area,that snow flurry action happens enough.I couldn't give you guys enough credit.People are sitting in that warm cozy home,and demand that electricity. You guys are high in a bucket lift.Freezing snow,heavy winds and pure misery.Kind of a thankless job.So God Bless You folks for your service!!!
Sir your years of experience and knowledge saved a bad situation from becoming a catastrophic one well done . you would make a great mentor and teacher .
Great video, Aaron! Lots of good info. Just lived through the two hurricanes here in Tampa. Went 3 days without power after Helena and 8 days from Milton. Luckily we had a small generator. Our condo is a few floors above them ground level.. During Milton the sky was constantly lit up by lines arching. It was like watching a heavy lightning storm, but on the ground. I’ve been through a lot of these storms, but never seen anything like Milton. Another line near our home kept arching to a tree when the wind would blow in that direction, but it never tripped. It eventually caught the tree on fire and since fire dept wasn’t going out during storm the tree literally burned to the ground, but it did little damage to anything else nearby. So many crazy stories from these to hurricanes!
As a layman, its cool to see how you guys handle this stuff in the moment. It's good to know that when you take a transmission line down, you take it very seriously. Thanks for what you do, from a humble American Great Laker. Keep Canada lit!
Your reputation was on full display when the dispatcher didn't ask questions and starting making calls. Must've had that guy shitting his pants when you key up with "hey this is bad turn this substation off right now."
My father did this job on a destroyer in WWI at 17. By the time he was 21 he was doing it as a civilian lineman. Before he retired he was managing huge projects.
It takes a lot to keep the lights on. Most people that I know take it for granted. I find that totally disgusting. This is the one thing that keeps us in the 21st.century.
Scary! Safety always comes first, glad you were able to resolve that arc fault without any major damage. Wet snow is terrible for power systems, I'll take the dry powder any day over the wet slop. Transmission stuff is intense though when it fails. You're such a knowledgeable professional lineman, appreciate everything you guys do, stay safe out there! And I also definitely appreciate all the advice for others who are getting into electric T&D.
Time vs. Certainty vs. facts - pick one of the three, maybe two. Wow. Almost like the fuse blew and arced along the side of the fuse holder. No idea on that one. Definitely a trophy item. Nope, never seen anything like that. Glad it was a short time. Hope those 1-2,000 customers get power back soon. Kudos to the dispatch and power operator for trusting each other.
I'm not a lineman, but I have occasionally seen an arc when I plug something in, so I've definitely had a similar experience. Jokes aside, love watching your stuff. I find the grid fascinating.
@@5Dale65 There is a video of a transmission substation failing, I think in Mexico...the REALLY interesting sound which I can only describe as a growling moan, happens when the transformer cores saturate from the extreme overload. It is the most evil sound any electrical equipment can make. I heard it up close during the Whittier Narrows earthquake. I was at our local sub talking to one of the crew when an aftershock hit. That sound started and even the veteran crew guys came flying out of that sub.
You guys are great. Im in Western ny and we get bad lake effect snow. I live out in the middle of the woods. I've seen line men out here so quick and in horrible weather. Up in buckets with quarter size snow hitting them in the face and 20mph winds. Cutting up down trees in waist deep snow in the middle of the night. It seems like its always in the middle of the night when we have these bad storms. The powers never out for very long. Thank You for All you do.
Nice work man. My Daughter lives in Halifax as a Dalhousie student. It's been nice knowing you and your team have been doing your best to keep the grid together in this challenging environment.
I listen to the local utility here and hear things about the reclosers and rerouting power. It’s fun to listen to. Definitely subscribing. Neat to see this in action.
I saw something like this 50 years ago in Elkins WVa. It was summer break and we were out late on our bikes. We saw a blue flash and what looked like someone welding. Rode our bikes over and saw something like this. The wind was blowing pretty good and it was pulling the arc out quite a ways. Watched the repair and got the old fuse and took it back to school in the fall to my HS electronics class. It stunk up the car on the way back home.
Well done! I’m a Transmission System Operator down in Texas. Distribution feeders are no problem to de-energize quickly. It doesn’t affect anyone but the customers. De-energizing a transmission line and substation is a little bit more complicated. For one a power flow study has to be performed on the system and the interconnection as a whole. De-energizing that line could cause other lines or equipment at other substations to overload. Not to mention if the other end of that line is connected to neighboring utility the dispatcher might not even have control over it via SCADA and will have to contact the dispatcher at that utility to open the breaker. There are A LOT moving parts that go into operating the grid so when he calls and it takes a few minutes to open line the dispatcher is doing a lot of checks before he does so.
In my opinion. It helps to have a questioning attitude sometimes. If that switch is burning in the station I might be ok with letting it burn until I get all of my checks done and talked to the area RC. If it was a matter of life or health then yes of course it would be dumped as fast as I could make it happen. This is strictly about transmission equipment only.
just give the bus breaker failure relay a poke, it works faster
good point, the grid is an interconnected network so big and fast changes will affect many generators and customer loads. Sometimes there are no easy answers
Having the electricity shut off for hours or a couple of days is a whole lot better than the main equipment being destroyed and being without electricity for weeks.
I know the feeling. During an extreme weather event, my grid operator announced they would be deenergizing everything in 5 counties in the path of the storm. The grid operator to the north of us didn't. Our HV lines were down for 3 weeks and the distribution lines took an additional 2 months to get to 80% restored. The operator to the north lost multiple substations & a generator. They took 4 months for a duct tape solution and still weren't rated for full capacity 2 years later
Yes
Yes . This Why I Now Have 22 Panel's Of Solar and A 9 KWH battery [ L G ]
@@nathanielhill8156 wow i could not imagine that. In Texas during our freeze, we sat for a whole week no water or power, could not imagine being 3 weeks without power.
@@GamingAppleTheFirstwe were blessed during Snowmageddon. We never lost power , but did lose it for two days when Hurricane Laura came through. Thankfully, we had a generator and plenty of gasoline. My husband prepared by getting enough fuel for three days. He keeps stabil in it and rotates it to the cars every two months. He has a small battery powered pump so he doesn’t have to try to pour out of those crappy new spouts.
I appreciate that the dispatcher acted first, then checked on you. Process is very important. He knew you, and knew you wouldn’t do something radical without urgent reason.
At least you didn't need a spotlight to find the fault!
Definitely a "well there's your problem right there" kind of situation lol
I'm a up-to-600 volts kind of electrician, my problems are that easy to find only when FPE panels are involved. Had a dock lift cord cold shorted on a 20A double pole (208 3ø) that was still live after violently arcing itself in half. Not all Stab-Lok breakers are that pyrotechnic, but the good ones and bad ones look identical until stuff goes wrong. 😂
@@kdawson020279ya gotta love FPE panels 😆!!!
@@kdawson020279 It is wild to me that things like this are still possible.. like you would think the system is so basic even the knock offs would work too... it's almost dumb to fail.
As a retired electrician in the States (not a lineman) I have the highest respect for all Utility workers especially the high voltage linemen. Where I live, those people appear almost immediately when there’s a loss of power after a severe storm.
Totally agree! In Itasca County, MN they have been so helpful and cooperative, have taken down huge trees for me that really are the property owners responsibility…. no questions asked, no charge and right on time!
@@9Point8 I didn't know linemen had chainsaws and other tree removal equipment. That sounds more like the tree crew.
All part of our everyday work!
@@TheAnantaSesa The head linesman and a couple guys drove the truck, went up in the cherry picker, dropped the line, cleared a couple tress, line went back up and they were on their way. This is northern MN, no underground lines to speak of all on poles. They are constantly dealing with wind and storms taking out lines. It’s what they do. Service is rarely down long.
Hell, in my area linemen come down from canada to help us with the big ones! These folks rock!
In the 90s I was a 911 tech for Verizon in Northern Virginia. Covered about 2,000,000 subscribers at that time. My director gave me a mission statement, "Keep me off the front page of the Washington Post!" Other than that, I was on my own, unlimited budget, unlimited hours. When training my replacement 10 years later, I told them, "Sometimes you need to push the Big Red Button (make a decision, and some times literally). If you can't do that, this is not the job for you!" BTW, never made the front page of the Washington Post on my watch.
What was the literal big red button in your case? Just curious. :)
@DrakeLuce Just the reset/reboot system button. People were in fear of resetting the system in the event it would not come back online. Usually due to them either not understanding how the system worked, or due to lack of confidence in their own decision making, or both. I left the position because of a change in company management. The new management became pissed off that the clients would run any questions through me rather than through our sales team. If the sales team tried to offer a new product the next call from the client was to me for my approval. At one point, the new management told the client they were not allowed to speak with me. The client told them for $10,000,000 a year, they would speak to whomever they liked. The final straw came when my new boss lied to the client in front of me about his major screw up blaming it on me. The customer turned to me and asked what really happened. Time to go! Loved the job, but outta there! I told them I would stay for a year in the position until replacements were up to speed, but I had another job waiting in another department with management I trusted.
Good. I lost a lot of faith in 911 after a few incidents where response times were bad, and one time the call was literally not answered which was a recurring nightmare I had before the incident. Glad to know that there are people out there who are doing all they can
One needs to realize that sometimes the 911 operators were given the job of holding back the Atlantic Ocean and were assigned one teenage kid with a broom. Back in the 1980s I was tracking a training echo storm City the rain wouldn't stop. Soon every stream was out of its banks. People were calling me and asking for a police car to block off an intersection. I had to say sorry there aren't any. Many of them are floating down the street. They would say how about a fire truck? I told them the fire station in your area is flooded out and no ambulances are available either. You are on your own. About two A.M. I got a break. I got my Dr. Pepper and sat down and realized that people were asking me to send help and there wasn't any to send. Since then I've worked other incidents where there was a bad outcome. It still gives me a gut punch.
@jerrylondon2388 --- Sir, we can hear you now!!! BWAAHAHAHAH joking...just joking pal
That just shows how trusted and respected you are that the dispatcher jumped on it immediately with no question.
Or the dispatcher knows what his/her job is and what Bob’s job is. No heroics, just doing their jobs.
The damage done by 15 min outage is not too much. Better shut it down one time too many
It shows his utility is safety conscious. As Aaron says in the video starting at 2:30, their procedures state that everyone has authority to cut the power when necessary and that determination is made by the Qualified Electrical Worker making the request. It's not up to the dispatcher to stand in the way of the request from the Qualified Electrical Worker. Safety first.
For real.
Dispatcher/operators don’t stand in the way of request. It isn’t our job, however we have to look at all the ramifications of just dumping a circuit. If it affects neighboring utilities, we have to make that notifications or they may respond in a negative way. Often times we don’t want to know the reason right away, all we need to know is it a threat to human life or damage to bulk electric system equipment.
When it comes to being in the position to dump thousands of customers, the trust and partnership between dispatch and field personnel essential. I’ve been in that position and it’s not to be taken lightly. Well done Bob.
Well done Bob, I'm a PSE who works in the control room - getting these calls from you folks is always treated very seriously - I was on shift when we had one come through a while back where we had to drop 50k+ properties on a 132kV supply point (UK) due to someone climbing on equipment...
Stay safe out there, again well done.
Oh wow 😲
Was that the in-crisis woman that went viral?
@@mattfleming86 Not sure which one you mean specifically - but it was an individual in crisis, although male in this instance
@martync6713 I caught a viral video a few days ago of a female climbing insulators at a substation... luckily she wasn't injured
I picture someone running down a hallway yelling cut the hard line!
Same 😂
The Matrix
Or saying, "Would it be possible to shut down grid 212?"
With a comically large set of cutters
"I need a key, it's locked!"
Thank you and all the lineman out there keeping our lights on.
or... turning them off when needed
and turning off the accidental ones!
Absolutely, thank you to all those people, and truck drivers and plumbers and everybody who keeps everything running. The amount of physical work it takes just to run a small flashlight, or wash your clothes... we can all flip a switch or press a button and have multiple kilowatts or horsepower at our command, and I think everybody takes that for granted. I wish we would focus on those kinds of things, which are like miracles compared to how humans lived for thousands of years, and be grateful for it, instead of arguing with each other and fighting all the time.
@@Robert-d5b1o Indeed! Our society has things a little backwards. We look up to the people we see on our phones and don't acknowledge the ones that built our homes.
Aaron this video really highlights how Linemen are unsung heroes. Traditional first responders get a lot of praise for saving lives but you guys have super dangerous jobs as well and definitely help and save people from disaster. Your professionalism is really inspiring and your content is so interesting. Stay safe out there!
You guys should be proud of job you do. You should be treated like first responders and you deserve all the respect too. As a former FF I was taught to wait for the power company and we always did.
That's exactly how safety should work. Managers, dispatchers, etc. listening to and acting quickly on called out safety issues is one half. The other is a body of staff equipped and empowered to evaluate safety and make those calls to shut down a job, or in your case, a piece of infrastructure affecting thousands and thousands of customers.
Exactly.
We used to have a VP (he retired) and his motto was “2 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days” however long it takes to get the job done safely.
I think my favorite comment on a large outage was the outage on Black Friday. "I guess this is your Back Friday special... You don't pay for any power, but you don't get it either" 😅
Lol I can only imagine the stuff you guys see and hear 😧😅
happened around 35 years ago at the substation 7363 ,same situation with a big arc at the fuse, same conclusion had to drop the 69KV line to isolate the defective switch
"I need this transmission line dumped ASAP"
"OK. I'll get back to you"
?!
Wow. That's trust and respect. He knew either lives or infrastructure must be in imminent danger.
Yup, and then *after* the line is disconnected some basic questions "Is everyone ok, etc..." but only after. Priorities, great to watch people that know what they're doing.
What would be another choice? As an operator in front of a computer screen I can't see what's going on outside. The linemen are my eyes out there. And if you don't shut down a power line with such arc flash issues, it's only a matter of time before it fails anyway and trips out itself... probably with extensive damage, causing extensive repairs.
@stormeagle28 the answer to that is in the video
Definitely and following procedure.
As stated in the video, the linesmen have the authority to cut the power in an emergency. Dispatch operator may not be able to see what's happening so they have to trust the linesmen to be their eyes in the field. Afterwards, when the questions are asked, if all can show they acted appropriately, then no problems there.
There's no requirement that dispatch ask zero questions before complying
You made the right call. Training & years of experience allowed you to make that split second-correct decision.
Open the right switches isolating the line affected with nomenclature & times for your dispatcher. Then have dispatch close the transmission line. Perfect. I bet the next day you have lots of good questions & you had the video to back you up.
Here that would get you a $200 gift card & the person nominating you gets a $50 gift card.
Atta boy Aaron!
I’ve been doing line work for over 34 years & I have yet to make that call? I’ve seen some crazy shit. Just not in my face like that.
What? A split-second. I suggest that you buy a new watch!
Thanks, Bob, as a 60-something guy in Oregon, I wanted to say thanks for all you and your fellow linemen have done to keep the lights on all over the country:)
The thought of working with electricity is frightening. I'm thankful there are professionals like you to address issues like this...even in the middle of the night during a snowstorm.
In most industries that I know of, the moment you trigger that sort of process it will trigger an immediate follow up investigation. Never to assign blame, rather to understand why it happened, was the process followed as intended, and what can be done to improve process and training to make the next response even safer and faster. Good to see everything went well as that could not have been fun.
Just root cause. All their failures have root cause attached to every incident. Go look at the logs.
Root Cause Analysis is usually one part of a bigger After Action Report.
Precisely. And we have those processes because sometimes that's the only way to realize "The controls are directly under the thing that drips molten metal when it fails" may need to be changed in future designs and / or deployed equipment.
@@MikeF1189 Exactly. RCA will tell you the how and what. The larger report looks at the why and larger how. As well as other improvements that are only spotted once you have the incident in mind.
I'm a substation engineer and I have so much respect for lineman and grid operators.
Excellent job. You know your work. I use to work for a major water utility on Long Island. I got many a call out on nights and holidays for pump station power failures. Most were power utility failures. I got to know the electrical utility workers. And much respect for the dangerous job they had. I saw a fuse closure blow up that scared everyone at the site. Guy was in the bucket only 10 feet away. It was a cloud of smoke. And took a minute for the bucket guy to say he was ok. We had an under ground primary short that night.
After Hurricane Helene in Augusta GA recently, you all were the first heroes. Then came the roofers and now the tree removal companies. I’m not forgetting you first responders. All I mentioned travelled a ton and deserve our respect.
Scary on many levels. Nice to see that when the high tension dropped, the arcing stopped and no residual burning was going on.
As a firefighter of 43 years, I’ve responded to many pole emergencies. I have the utmost respect for those guys in the bucket!!! They are just as courageous as any of us.
That is terrifying! You do your job very well. The "What the #^&$ are they waiting for?' did crack me up. I was wondering the same thing. The minutes must have seemed like hours. Thank you for all you guys do in the worst conditions. Please stay safe, and God bless.
This is where more remote capabilities are helpful. When you can just call a number on the phone and tell them what to dump and all they have to do is click some buttons on a computer. Beats having to wait for an operator to be called in and dispatched then drive to a switch somewhere miles away.
He damn well better do it well or he wouldn't be there in the first place. These linemen jobs are highly coveted.
just imagine if nobody has seen that, and it progressed without intervention.....
Definitely could have been bad! Eventually it would have likely cross phases or gone to ground and tripped the Highline... But the fault could have very well burned the entire structure!
It would have eventually caused a phase to phase fault and dome a lot of severe damage to the substation. 😮
@@Bobsdecline "it'll burn out eventually" :-) I've seen a few systems around here (NC) with isolation panels between the phases, I assume to limit arcs. (the smaller scale "industrial" systems have those boards to stop the errant screwdriver. I've told the story of the telco power minions dropping a wrench into a PDU... that was just -48VDC/5000A.)
@@jfbeam I have seen coper plated glass windows in two doors with a spanner that dropped 2 floors and fell across the 8 inch by 1/2 inch x two copper buss interconnecting 3 battery rooms and 4 rectifier banks on diffrent floors the rectifiers were in sets of 3 x 1000 amps (12000 amps) battery rooms had 3 banks of 4000Ah cells (36000 Ah) the spanner was never seen again and a 1 inch notch left in the buss bars.
Good thing that arcing was observed in the dark of night. The initial low glow certainly would have been much more difficult to detect in daylight.
If the fuse gets examined and the mode of failure is found, it sure would be interesting to hear some follow up on that. Not really holding my breath since the temperatures involved could easily destroy any clues. Great video by the way! Thanks for keeping us safe and keeping the lights on.
I would like to know too. I was wondering if the wet snow caused ice that span the connections on the outside of the fuse causing it to short. Salt water spray from the ocean can cause arcing on insulators in switchyards so I was wondering what the snow effect was in this case.
Well done Bob and Ryan, well done! Your actions and understanding really show what "professional" really means.
Appreciate the kind words 🤝
Safety done RIGHT. 👷👍
Anybody can drop, serious authority and protocol necessary to reestablish.
Thanks for another great video.
Aaron. Great video, especially your partner at the 9:32 mark saying "What the ef are they waiting for".
While I was living in Florida I was in the house minding my own business. I heard a sound which I don't think I ever heard before. To me it sounded like metal plates sliding on concrete or even super loud welding. I stepped outside and it had quit. So then I had walked down our long driveway to get the mail, when the sound came back and I think I jumped off the ground. The high voltage line running overhead on the other side of the road was producing electricity on the outside of the wire. It looked scary to me. I called FPL and got right through to the top guy and he said he would send them out right away. They must of had trucks close by because they were there in less than 10 minutes. This road we lived on was always super busy.
Florida Man strikes again.
last time I was in Florida, a giant line broke off and went down across the highway and other roads near orlando/ disney. one of their silly mouse head towers. that made a wee mess of things that day.
FPL had an substation explosion with a video of it here on UA-cam.
Thanks!
Dang! much appreciated! 🤝
You bet! Just found your channel, I'm in awe of the work you and your comrades do. You all keep our world going 'round ⚡️⚡️🌎⚡️⚡️
As I was walking out of my condo about 9pm here in Thailand last week I saw a glow and sparks at the point where there was a connection from the street line to one of the 3 fuses leading to our transformer. I had the security guard call the local electric company, they're 3km away and it took them 3 hours to get here. Luckily it just kept glowing and sputtering and they were able to fix the drop and restore power in about an hour. They gave me the melted drop wire and I gave it to the building management the next day. I worked in solar for 5 years and have tremendous respect for electricity - thanks for your efforts every day to stay safe and help your customers!
your love for the cu is amazing. Its real. thank you from WNC post Halene . we saw you Canadians down here helping. Thank you all.
Talk about right place, right time.
Imagine you had passed that area a few minutes earlier.
Great job. Great video. Love your work, excited to started my apprenticeship in 25!
Respect and prayers to all the linesmen out there handling these dangerous technical tasks. It blows my mind how fast you guys git it done.
I don't know how much you're paid but it's not enough. I have such respect and admiration for you guys. Stay safe and merry Christmas 🎄 to all.
Amen.
Makes me think of the scene in Die Hard: "Lose the grid or you lose your job!" "Uh..Can you shut down grid 220? I got a big problem. Shut it down now!"
Glad you made it through this high tension failure . It is/was obvious when the power was cut and then you can breath and start to do work on the issue. I don't think this will be the first we will see you and the area guy this winter!? Stay safe and keep the lights on . Good work.
Love that professionalism of dispatch to trust the people on the ground when there's an "oh shit" call. great video.
Wow! That's pretty scary and lucky that you caught it when you did. And definitely hear you on being able to justify a judgement call, especially when it has a huge impact on the customers.
Neat snowman. Great for a chuckle.😆
Thank you and your brotherhood of linemen for keeping power to the people, safely.
That is a situation that even as a regular sparky can come up....I've had a few commercial calls where I had to end up dumping an entire building to contain a fault that was threatening to take out the entire switchgear. One memorable one was a plant where interrupting power to process was going to cause a lot of collateral issues with equipment...I told the owner we do the immediate shutdown and fix it within a few hours, or we let it burn until it takes out the entire service and you'll be down for weeks as we pull the damaged gear out and order in new gear. (At a cost of lost production and new gear in the millions.) In my position then (as with yours in this case) it was ok, do a short term shutdown of 10-20k customers or let the entire substation fault out taking days if not weeks to rebuild...which is the lesser of the two? Sounds like your utility has good folks at the top and made the right call to trust your judgement without question.
Linemen are little known treasures. I have had some experience with low volt fuses and cut-outs, but you Folks are in another realm. Thanks!
As a Floridian, a lineman is as much of a hero as any other first responder. I open my window and say thank you if it's possible on the road.
I am glad that the people like you who operate and fix these problems have the depth of knowledge to make the correct decisions when needed. My respect to you all.
Major respect!
I'm Inside Wireman.
This stuff makes me happier I'm working in instrumentation and motor shop.
Great video. It must have been a very unusual fault to have never experienced it in 21 years as a lineman. I can only imagine the sensation that you must get knowing you are about to cut electricity to 20,000 customers. Thanks for sharing your story.
We had a (something like) 50-100 year ice storm in Arkansas 20 years ago. Branches and trees all over the Southwest broke/fell on power lines. Hundreds of thousands were out of power. We were out for 7 days and on the 8th day, when the trucks from the electric company and trucks…from Arkansas and surrounding states… flooded the area and eventually showed up on our street. They were like our liberators… LOL. Everyone that could brought them coffee, doughnuts, cookies, whatever we could, because we knew they were working all day, all night to get the power restored. You guys are unsung heroes, to be sure. 99% of people don't even know you exist…… until we need you, then there you are. 🙂
I'm in the UK, but I can appreciate a true professional. Scary call to make, but the right one. Thanks for showing us the realities of the job.
great video !!!! almost every sparky hates that sound !!! i cant imagine how loud it was....especially from a transmission line.......thanks for sharing this.
Thank you guys for all your dangerous hard work
We had the equivalent feeders (66kV) which were erected in 1930 in my area of Australia (In New South Wales) pulled down & replaced with 132 kV concrete poles a bit over a decade ago now so that's all been upgraded.
In 1945 we only had 1 × 11 kV feeder erected which supplied both sides of the river in our town back in 1945 before a bridge was even built, the 11 kV feeder was split up into 2 feeders which supplied power to either side, the problem is that the feeder was 35-40 kilometres Long & there wasn't much in our area back then except a few dairy farms which is all that 11 kV feeder was for, to run their milking machines.
So there was a 66/33 kV substation (it's now 132/11kV) supplying power to a 33/11 kV substation which is about 40 kilometres away when it was built in 1955 (it has been replaced since), it was connected directly to the 66 kV substation in 1945,but we didn't have to rely on that by the early to mid 1970's.
By the early to mid 1970's that was upgraded by 2 x 11 kV feeders which were 11-13 kilometres long from our nearest major town & they installed a switched 11 kV feeder which could be used to balance the load in the grid or isolate the power if any repairs or upgrades needs to be carried out.
In 2014 a 132/11 kV substation was built which took the load off that towns 33/11 kV substation because our area has increased in population & more people are having 3 phase reverse cycle air conditioners installed now.
The new (now 10 year old) substation has 6 × 11kV feeder outputs for our local area !
great video, it all comes to integrity... you did this... because of this. no one can argue with that. You had a plan, and it was executed.
So thanksful guys like you are out there keeping this stuff up, running, and safe! I can only imagine how you must have felt making that call. Yeah, putting 20K in the dark for ever just a small amount of time is probably something you do with the potential for consequences period! Crazy!
Being in dispatch as a high school student workong part time in IT for my local coop during a storm and witnessing a call similar to that, you and your dispatcher were on the same page and knew exactly what needed to be done, good job on keeping everyone safe and keeping the system from taking a massive amount of damage.
Thx Bob for "Keeping the lites on" in inclement weather safely. Much respect from 31yr retired Utility worker.
I remember pulling up to a 500kv sub that was pitch black with a huge orange glow where the 500/220 kv transformer bank used to reside with flames coming up out of cable trenches from burning transfomer oil, wasn't a good day when the ABB bank went from about to blow to glow.
Two questions:
How long did it take to repair that issue and reenergize the lines?
And, you showed a clip of a fire on a pole. How many poles have you had to change out due to fire, and how long is the process.
I guess that's actually 4 questions.
We had the 69kV line energized within about 15 minutes. The sub in particular was about 8-10 hours.
I've changed out hundreds of poles due to fire... Typically about 6 hours including response time and 3 hours if we use a pole top extension.
@Bobsdecline interesting. Thank you for the reply.
Once the blade switch is disengaged the whole fault region is isolated, so the main line can be reenergised. Inspection is appropriate, but in theory it only needs to be off as long as it takes to get to and operate the blade switch.
I am no expert, but I don't think attempting to disconnect using the blade would be a good idea, even if it was accessible. It isn't designed to kill arcs that have already formed, and you risk damaging equipment that cannot be remotely isolated from the main line.
@agsystems8220 ya I got that from Bob's explanations, But thamks.
Wow - that was quite the freak thing and no bueno. Excellent work. Having the power cut ASAP to prevent further damage was the right call for sure. Kind of reminds me of a call I responded to as a volunteer firefighter years ago. We were dispatched to a 'pole fire'. Of course there's not much we can do but block things off and watch the show, but the crossarm was burning and eventually, it let go and a primary (most likely a 7200V L-N) made contact with the neutral. That was quite the show! If that substation had made it that far, with 69kV, it likely would have been a tad more 'energetic'.
Thanks for the Great Risks you take to keep Service ON and/or Restoring it after Outages. Safety and Training is Everything. 👍🙏
God bless the linesmen everywhere. We just had power out for 2 days here in Devon, England due to high winds and the crew were out there putting poles back up when the wind speed was still about 40 mph. They were ahead of the scheduled re-connect time by about 20 hours! What a crew. Balls of steel. Thanks for your dedication.
Great work Aaron, the system worked as planned and everyone was safe. ❤❤❤
Thanks for keeping the lights on and the heat functioning. 👊🏻
My old man was a lineman in Wisconsin. He’d often get called out on trouble calls during and after storms, winter or summer.
I know he had a friend killed when the friend “closed circuit” with “himself”.
Gotta respect the work you folks do.
Thanks to You and Your Fellow Workers for keeping the Power flowing ! Be Safe!
Err, but the power was turned off for ages - NOT kept flowing.
Nothing but respect and admiration to the folks that do this work. Beyond dangerous . Highly technical.. Abysmal working conditions on any given day. You guys are awesome!!!!!👏
You and every other lineman like you are greatly under appreciated. Thank you guys!
Real interesting.I gotta say you guys really are the unsung HEROES!Being in the Buffalo area,that snow flurry action happens enough.I couldn't give you guys enough credit.People are sitting in that warm cozy home,and demand that electricity. You guys are high in a bucket lift.Freezing snow,heavy winds and pure misery.Kind of a thankless job.So God Bless You folks for your service!!!
Sir your years of experience and knowledge saved a bad situation from becoming a catastrophic one well done . you would make a great mentor and teacher .
Great video, Aaron! Lots of good info. Just lived through the two hurricanes here in Tampa. Went 3 days without power after Helena and 8 days from Milton. Luckily we had a small generator. Our condo is a few floors above them ground level.. During Milton the sky was constantly lit up by lines arching.
It was like watching a heavy lightning storm, but on the ground. I’ve been through a lot of these storms, but never seen anything like Milton. Another line near our home kept arching to a tree when the wind would blow in that direction, but it never tripped. It eventually caught the tree on fire and since fire dept wasn’t going out during storm the tree literally burned to the ground, but it did little damage to anything else nearby. So many crazy stories from these to hurricanes!
As a layman, its cool to see how you guys handle this stuff in the moment. It's good to know that when you take a transmission line down, you take it very seriously. Thanks for what you do, from a humble American Great Laker. Keep Canada lit!
Your reputation was on full display when the dispatcher didn't ask questions and starting making calls. Must've had that guy shitting his pants when you key up with "hey this is bad turn this substation off right now."
My father did this job on a destroyer in WWI at 17. By the time he was 21 he was doing it as a civilian lineman. Before he retired he was managing huge projects.
This is one of the cases where a video really helps the investigation.
It takes a lot to keep the lights on. Most people that I know take it for granted. I find that totally disgusting. This is the one thing that keeps us in the 21st.century.
Wow. Glad that you were safe.
Scary! Safety always comes first, glad you were able to resolve that arc fault without any major damage. Wet snow is terrible for power systems, I'll take the dry powder any day over the wet slop. Transmission stuff is intense though when it fails. You're such a knowledgeable professional lineman, appreciate everything you guys do, stay safe out there! And I also definitely appreciate all the advice for others who are getting into electric T&D.
Time vs. Certainty vs. facts - pick one of the three, maybe two.
Wow. Almost like the fuse blew and arced along the side of the fuse holder. No idea on that one. Definitely a trophy item.
Nope, never seen anything like that. Glad it was a short time. Hope those 1-2,000 customers get power back soon.
Kudos to the dispatch and power operator for trusting each other.
Rare emergency. Great that the dispatcher matched Aaron-Reputation to action w/o more than "OK".
God bless and keep you safe. Thank you for what you do.
I'm not a lineman, but I have occasionally seen an arc when I plug something in, so I've definitely had a similar experience. Jokes aside, love watching your stuff. I find the grid fascinating.
Wow! And what a wicked sound that arc makes!
The best sound is when the arc reaches another phase and goes full kaboom. It can deafen you.
@@5Dale65 There is a video of a transmission substation failing, I think in Mexico...the REALLY interesting sound which I can only describe as a growling moan, happens when the transformer cores saturate from the extreme overload. It is the most evil sound any electrical equipment can make. I heard it up close during the Whittier Narrows earthquake. I was at our local sub talking to one of the crew when an aftershock hit. That sound started and even the veteran crew guys came flying out of that sub.
@@5Dale65 And blind you. The irony of a fault you can't even look at without risking going blind.
WOW... Thank you for your service..
Good on You. You proved the value of experience and conscientious workers.
You guys are great. Im in Western ny and we get bad lake effect snow. I live out in the middle of the woods. I've seen line men out here so quick and in horrible weather. Up in buckets with quarter size snow hitting them in the face and 20mph winds. Cutting up down trees in waist deep snow in the middle of the night. It seems like its always in the middle of the night when we have these bad storms. The powers never out for very long. Thank You for All you do.
Man, we appreciate the hell outta you linemen!
Nice work man. My Daughter lives in Halifax as a Dalhousie student. It's been nice knowing you and your team have been doing your best to keep the grid together in this challenging environment.
Hahaha keep hiding from the cold and working safely as you have been doing!! excellent documentation with audio available in several languages! GBU!
I'm still astounded by men like you who risk it all, sometimes on purpose, and yet do it any ways for the people around them.
Serious stuff, you are THE man for this job!!
So fascinating to see what happens behind the scenes when the power goes out. Kudos.
I listen to the local utility here and hear things about the reclosers and rerouting power. It’s fun to listen to. Definitely subscribing. Neat to see this in action.
Great job ! Quick thinking . Happy to see all are safe .
Have a Merry Christmas .
I saw something like this 50 years ago in Elkins WVa. It was summer break and we were out late on our bikes. We saw a blue flash and what looked like someone welding. Rode our bikes over and saw something like this. The wind was blowing pretty good and it was pulling the arc out quite a ways. Watched the repair and got the old fuse and took it back to school in the fall to my HS electronics class. It stunk up the car on the way back home.
Glad to see it contained.
Great work, thanks for the video! We see lots of hydro trucks out in rural Ontario that keep our farms moving, appreciate your work!
Respect. Stay safe.
Glad you’re safe. Great info.
You guys are the unsung heroes out there.
That’s a lot of angry pixies right there.
Stay safe!