FWIS3

I'm at the bar half a block away from home. Wife texts me saying that there were booms and sparks coming from the transformer on the pole outside the house. Should she be worried. I respond that the power will probably go out soon if not already.

I pack up my laptop, pay the bill and head home. I see the power line fallen and laying in the street. No police or Georgia Power yet. Not being stupid, even though I think the line is dead, I avoid it as I pass. Shortly, an Atlanta fire truck shows up and stops in the middle of the street, just short of the fallen line. They're now blocking the street from that direction. I retire to my front porch and watch the proceedings. Four firefighters mill about in front of their truck where the fallen line is. No one is behind the truck. A bicyclist zooms from behind the truck, passing mere feet from the line. Firefighters scream and yell at him to avoid the fallen line. All four of them.

I watch in semi-horror. If the line had been live (and it may well be) and the bicyclist had hit it, he may have been injured or killed. Yet all four are on one side of their truck, chatting to nearby residents. After the bicyclist, one guy comes back to the truck. I'm thinking he will do something to stop that from happening again. Either stay there to warn people or put up cones or something. No, he just grabs his reflective vest and starts walking back to the other three.

At this point, he's right at my porch and I say to him that maybe one of you four should stay on that side of the truck to stop people from biking through like that guy just did. His response was to get into my face about he's a firefighter and maybe I should let him do his job.

Minutes later, a couple of them break off their conversation with the locals and put orange cones around the fallen cable.

After looking at the power lines and transformer, the cable was the 240 Volt line from the secondary of the transformer and it separated near the transformer. So the cable laying on the ground was probably dead, unless there was some sort of backfeed going on.

Georgia Power showed up before too long. The lineman attempted a temporary splice but it failed, with another boom and flash. So he's up there trying to fix it again. It's a new power line, too. I saw Georgia Power installing it last week.

You got a free show.

geonuc wrote:After looking at the power lines and transformer, the cable was the 240 Volt line from the secondary of the transformer and it separated near the transformer. So the cable laying on the ground was probably dead, unless there was some sort of backfeed going on.

Georgia Power showed up before too long. The lineman attempted a temporary splice but it failed, with another boom and flash. So he's up there trying to fix it again. It's a new power line, too. I saw Georgia Power installing it last week.

Probably fried the transformer. China Quarity! China Goot!