A Day With A Lineman #29 ~ Washed Away

It was nice to finally get a break from all the rain that's been pouring down. All the rivers and streams around here are on the verge of overflowing. They look like the chocolate river from Willy Wonka. These raging rivers pose a threat to some of our power poles that are near them. So whenever the rivers and creeks start flowing like this we go and take a look to make sure all of our power poles are still standing.

A concerned customer called in about a leaning pole near the Touchet River. 2 years ago we had sole pretty major flooding and 4 poles along the river were in about 2 feet of water. The river's current was so fast that it actually pushed the bottoms of the poles down stream a couple feet. This time around things were a little different.

Welcome back to a video edition of A Day With A Lineman. Let's have a look and see what the river did this time around. About 20 feet of the river bank is missing. The pole used to be about 10-12 feet from the bank now its in the river about 5 feet. Our goal was to get the pole secured while we come up woth a game plan to relocate the line further away from the river.

To get a rope around the butt of the pole, we tied a branch on the end of it. Then tossed it in the water and let the river carry it around the back side of the pole. I then used one of our hotsticks to grab the rope and tie a choker knot to go around the pole. Then we anchored it to a nearby tree.

In order to relieve pressure pushing against the pole, we needed to break up the log jam. It took us over and hour to free up all the debris and send it down river. A few sections of my extendable hotstick went down river too. Laying on the bank on my stomach, I pushed this log out into the current. The attachement on the end of my hotsick got caught in the branches of the log. I tried to free it but the current was so strong it started to pull me into the water. Bye Bye Hotstick As it went travelig dow river, the log rolled and the hotstick was sticking straight up in the air. Maybe this summer the Splatts family will have to float the river and see if I can find it. LOL

The next day the crew went out and set 2 new poles and barely managed to get the washed out pole out of the river. The bank had been washed away even further. They said it was about 15 feet from the bank now. Hopefully we rebuild this section of powerline away from the river soon. Along the road wiuld be nice. :wink:wink

Thanks for checking out a video ediition of A Day With A Lineman. I hope it brought some insight into some of the challeneges we face when trying to keep your lights on.