EXPLODED!! ~ Power Pole Took a Direct Hit of Lightning

Looking to the west, it was a wall of black clouds headed my direction. I got a call of a pole on fire and I was headed directly into the storm. “Well, this should be fun…” Slowing down on the highway to 50mph with the windshield wipers full speed and I still could hardly see due to the amount of rain falling. Lightning flashes in every direction. “Gee, this keeps getting better!”

The only direction I got regarding the burning pole was that it was north of the highway off of Woodward Canyon Rd… That section of powerline wonders through the hills a long ways!! Couldn’t they be a little more specific?!?

No reports of anyone being out of power, just flickering and blinking lights due to the lightning. Hopefully this so called pole fire was put out with the massive amount of rain that poured down.

Then I found it!! As I came around a sweeping turn there was debris spread across the road. Shards of the power pole 5,6,7 feet long laying across the road. So much for a pole fire!! This frikken pole exploded!! It took a quarter of the pole off all the way to the ground and split the top in half!! WOW!! There were pieces of the pole over 100 feet away. they weren’t small pieces either. They were about 3-4 feet long. CRAZY!!

The next pole down the line had a wooden brace that was blown apart pretty good. Nothing to get too excited about. But the second pole down had the top blown out too!! Down in a hole off the road about 300 feet. This pole will be fun to change out, down a steep hill and the ground is super soft and muddy.

During this storm we actually didn’t do to bad. Just lost a couple poles in the area. Further north a crew was running a line out and found 4 insulators that had been blown apart, 4 spans of wire broke and fell on the ground, and 3 cut-outs (porcelain fuse holders) that were also blown apart. Considering the amount of lightning we had… I expected things to be a lot worse.