# The Tally For Today (Pictures)



## electricalperson (Jan 11, 2008)

poor little squirrel


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

electricalperson said:


> poor little squirrel


 I'm sure he never knew what hit him. I think I'm gonna have the guys put animal boots over the new stress cones, though. :whistling2:

-John


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

Big John said:


> It started with an emergency call for 4 substation trip-offs, all off the same 24kV primary line.
> 
> I start walking the line and outside one of the subs find 3 destroyed potheads, which are the changeover splices from the underground conductors to the pole-top conductors:
> 
> ...


You need some of this for your boots John...:laughing::laughing:









http://www.zonkshop.com/red-wing-boot-oil-p-1121.html


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

HARRY304E said:


> You need some of this for your boots John....


 Bah, it's time for a new pair anyway.

-John


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

Rough estimate of the damage cause by rocky?


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

Big John said:


> I'm sure he never knew what hit him. I think I'm gonna have the guys put animal boots over the new stress cones, though. :whistling2:
> 
> -John


 
Well, that answers my question on where he was


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## That's It? (Aug 31, 2011)

Big John said:


> 1 very cooked squirrel:


 And next week on trailer park cuisine...


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Bkessler said:


> Rough estimate of the damage cause by rocky?


 Between the time for my crew, the time for the lineys, the costs of lost revenue from the outages, the replacement parts, it's well into six figures. I'm still out here waiting on the line crews to finish up so we can do a final PI on the whole shebang and re-energize.

The only thing that really surprises me is that it hasn't happened before. I mean, is this really the first time an animal climbed that pole...?

-John


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

John,
this recently happened in my area, and as i see the poco boys a lot, they claimed it was intense fog which _traced_ up the contacts.....

~CS~


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## Magnettica (Jan 23, 2007)

Bet that score squirrel will never do that again!

Thanks for sharing these pictures Big John.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

chicken steve said:


> John,
> this recently happened in my area, and as i see the poco boys a lot, they claimed it was intense fog which _traced_ up the contacts....


I was taught that fog causes tracking because rain has a tendency to wash away the grime on the surface of the insulator, whereas fog just saturates it. Makes for a much more conductive mixture. 

Not much of a problem here. Just the animals. We had a rat get into a 13.8kV breaker a while back, puffed out a piece of metal-clad switchgear like a balloon.

There's another squirrel that's the official mascot of one of the plants. They've named him OT. :whistling2:

-John


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## r_merc (Jul 5, 2008)

We had a juvenile Bald Eagle fly into the corona ring on the lightning arrestor on a 345KV. Big Smoke ball and it was caught on the Security Camera. Amazing to see. I will see if I can get it from our training department to post.
Rick


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

I've heard of that happening with condors: Their wing span is enough to bridge the air-gap in transmission lines and cause a flashover. Never seen it though. :icon_eek:

-John


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

we did a small amount of overhead work at a base nearby, and they made us put bird diverters on the lines so the the eagles don't accidently run into the wires. I coudn't really understand it because I thought bald eagles could see a mouse a mile away or something like that.


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## noarcflash (Sep 14, 2011)

birds of prey have amazing eye sight, but they don't equate power lines with danger. they see it as a perch.


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## LARMGUY (Aug 22, 2010)

r_merc said:


> We had a juvenile Bald Eagle fly into the corona ring on the lightning arrestor on a 345KV. Big Smoke ball and it was caught on the Security Camera. Amazing to see. I will see if I can get it from our training department to post.
> Rick


 
Funny you said that, I was cruising by the local power plant one night and saw a blue glow around the plant and saw people running away from it. Instinctively I floored the truck accelerator and was about a block away when I heard what sounded to me as a 155 howitzer in my pickup bed. I turned around and looked at the smoking hole in the power plant building and called 911.

Weird thing is, I never found out from the news what happened.


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## r_merc (Jul 5, 2008)

*Bad day for an eagle*

Here is the Vid


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## Zog (Apr 15, 2009)

Big John said:


> It started with an emergency call for 4 substation trip-offs, all off the same 24kV primary line.
> 
> I start walking the line
> -John


Ever find any of those old hand blown glass insulators? The system in your area is about as old as they get, ever find any of those? I have a ConEd buddy that has a huge collection.


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## ecelectric (Mar 27, 2009)

Time to invest in animal guards they are a life saver . We have the on all our vulnerable glass


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