# High Winds?



## glen1971 (Oct 10, 2012)

I was asked yesterday by a guy I work with, if the utility companies have guidelines to when it is too windy to go up in a basket or work on overhead lines? Yesterday we had wind gusts up to 165 km/h (100 mp/h) and we needed one line repaired and a pole replaced after a tree fell and took it out. The jobs were all done as quickly as they can under the conditions, and safely.
I know lots of it is common sense, and their safety at the end of the day is first and foremost, but I'm just curious what others have seen/do.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Great question, I can't honestly recall ever hearing of a line crew stopping for high winds.


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## glen1971 (Oct 10, 2012)

MechanicalDVR said:


> Great question, I can't honestly recall ever hearing of a line crew stopping for high winds.


Me either.. Like we were talking about yesterday, no one typically calls a line crew on a calm sunny day and says they have an issue.. It's typically in the worst weather the area has, pouring rain, driving snow, high winds, thunderstorms, etc..


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

glen1971 said:


> Me either.. Like we were talking about yesterday, no one typically calls a line crew on a calm sunny day and says they have an issue.. *It's typically in the worst weather the area has, pouring rain, driving snow, high winds, thunderstorms, etc..*


Exactly!

The only time I got involved with line work on gov/mil contracts was during some type of emergency normally a bad storm.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

The wind is so strong right now we're gonna have to reef the main and furl the jib.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Our wind is a little different. We get plenty of afternoon storms where winds can reach 80 mph but it's for 5-20 minutes. For those events it's just sit it out, pay attention, be safe, etc. There's often lots of lighting and that will keep you at bay as well.


As to hurricanes, our ground rule is emergency services hunker down and stop running calls when the wind hits 40mph because the time it takes to go from 40 mph to 140 mph can be pretty short. Then we start running calls again when the wind comes back down to 40 mph.


You're asking about line work but you don't say what they're doing and where with what type of equipment and what type of infrastructure. 



Is this transmission work done via helicopter? That's not happening in 100 mph winds. Is it resetting something 20' up on the pole in grandma's back yard?


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## canbug (Dec 31, 2015)

The winds we have been having blow all afternoon and blow semi-trailers over. 
That's what Glen is working in.


Tim.


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## emtnut (Mar 1, 2015)

canbug said:


> The winds we have been having blow all afternoon and blow semi-trailers over.
> That's what Glen is working in.
> 
> 
> Tim.


That's what we heard on the news out east here.

I don't know how many of you have been in the bucket, but they move quite a bit when it's windy, let alone blow over trucks windy .

The larger boom trucks have hydraulic outriggers so they aren't going to be falling over, but it would be pretty tough to do any work in the boom.

We didn't have any restrictions working in wind, but apart from a storm out this way (gusts lasting 15 mins or so) I can never remember it being an issue here.


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## canbug (Dec 31, 2015)

I work in an 80 ft picker and 100+ ft crane, but if it's much more than a breeze, I'll stay on the ground and work another day. I have that choice.


Tim.


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## emtnut (Mar 1, 2015)

canbug said:


> I work in an 80 ft picker and 100+ ft crane, but if it's much more than a breeze, I'll stay on the ground and work another day. I have that choice.
> 
> 
> Tim.


Largest truck I had out was 44' to the bottom of the bucket (from the ground).
There was quite a bit of sway in that when it was fully extended ... I can only imagine what 80'+ would be like in winds like that :icon_eek:


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## glen1971 (Oct 10, 2012)

MikeFL said:


> Our wind is a little different. We get plenty of afternoon storms where winds can reach 80 mph but it's for 5-20 minutes. For those events it's just sit it out, pay attention, be safe, etc. There's often lots of lighting and that will keep you at bay as well.
> 
> 
> As to hurricanes, our ground rule is emergency services hunker down and stop running calls when the wind hits 40mph because the time it takes to go from 40 mph to 140 mph can be pretty short. Then we start running calls again when the wind comes back down to 40 mph.
> ...


We've been under a wind warning for the past 4 days, with wind gusts over 100 mph, and sustained around 60 mph.

Yesterday we found a broken insulator on top of a pole that was blowing in the wind. Naturally the jumper wire on it broke off to an east/west line, leaving about 3' of energized line blowing in the wind. When they isolated the line and were putting on the grounds to do the repair, the lines were blowing 5-6'(?) away from him while he was in the basket. Then he went up and replaced the insulator..
At another site, a tree blew onto a line, snapped the crossarm off about 5' down from the top and twisted the lines. They had to line locate, remove the old pole, hydrovac in a new pole, repair the lines. This one was in the middle of a right of way, and fortunately the ground was frozen so they could get into it.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Another consideration is where you measure your wind speed.

Here it's 30' AGL. I'd guess up on the northern (or anywhere in the) Rockies 30' is halfway up a tree, or less. Here the slope of the ground (and seafloor) is 1' per mile or 1:5280. If you want to be 15' above sea level, go 15 miles inland. If you want to fish in 40' of water, go 40 miles offshore (on the west coast of FL). 

I'd guess 1' above ground level on top of a 4,000 AMSL mountain ridge the wind on a calm day is quite brisk!


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## glen1971 (Oct 10, 2012)

MikeFL said:


> Another consideration is *where you measure your wind speed.*
> 
> Here it's 30' AGL. I'd guess up on the northern (or anywhere in the) Rockies 30' is halfway up a tree, or less. Here the slope of the ground (and seafloor) is 1' per mile or 1:5280. If you want to be 15' above sea level, go 15 miles inland. If you want to fish in 40' of water, go 40 miles offshore (on the west coast of FL).
> 
> I'd guess 1' above ground level on top of a 4,000 AMSL mountain ridge the wind on a calm day is quite brisk!


20' tower on a regularly maintained environment monitor. I think our elevation is around 4,000 ft.


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

In Wyoming a typical breezy day is 100 MPH. 20-40 MPH is what they call calm. Wyoming contractors laugh at a local chemical plant that freaks out over 25 MPH because they would never do any work at all at home.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk


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## glen1971 (Oct 10, 2012)

Wind gusts today up to 182 kmh (113 mph)... Good day to relax on the couch!


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## joebanana (Dec 21, 2010)

Usually crane operators won't fly stuff if the wind is over 30 MPH. But it depends on the crane and manufacturer's specs. Man baskets even less.


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## Brentwerks (Nov 6, 2020)

A few weeks ago I had the joy of unhooking the 10' lifting straps from the crane hook 10' above the 50' lightning masts and 40' dead end structure components in 20-30+ mph winds in a 60' JLG boom lift at full stick up vertical to reach the hook...that was a lil creepy. that first jolt when you start to drop down in the boom is enough to make most ppl freak. Nothing like hitting the limit stop on both the lower and upper boom in the wind and then still having to telescope the boom straight up. The crane and me were pretty relieved to be done that day.


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## Brentwerks (Nov 6, 2020)

running conduit for lightning protection on the side of a 100' tall aircraft hanger had its moments as well especially when you get near the corner of the building where the wind goes from 5mph to like 30mph in seconds. Some perspective this is only a 80' boom lift we had to get a 125' lift to get the rest of the way up. Keep a steady hand on your tools and a steadier hand on the controls.


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## micromind (Aug 11, 2007)

I've never liked high work but it seems that I do a lot of it.........


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## Brentwerks (Nov 6, 2020)

It helps if some of your co-workers are scared to death of heights....you tend to get "volunteered" or is it "voluntold" lol, was a nice job until covid crap came along and got laid off. But working in a lift is nice its peaceful when nobody around to bother you, have to get pretty creative doing conduit runs across a hanger ceiling where nothing is at right angles and you constantly have to work around various structural steel, ductwork, rod supports, lights etc. all while NOT hitting any fire suppression systems Operating the lift had its challenges when the majority of our conduit was run on the ceiling above the steel framing... when it takes 45 minutes to get a lift in position just to change out a lamp. Oh did i mention that maybe the constant for the lights may have been forgotten to be pulled so we had to literally get to almost every JB above the light fixtures again some of which were hanging by 50' of rigid all while avoiding snagging the seismic support cables securing the lights. ....oops LMFAO.
_In this pic we are at the light fixture and the green beam is another lift maneuvering above us to pull a constant down from the JB about 45-50' above us to the emergency light ballast...fun times had by all.







_


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