How'd it go today?

Pulled out of the shop and made it two hundred yards and my truck died. I'm guessing we had some water in the fuel that froze up since it was 10*F this morning. Mech is messing with it now. It was fun getting drug backwards with a chain on a stare route during morning rush hour. Just pulled into the jobsite now at 10:15. I've lost all desire to work today. I guess I should go and make an attempt to salvage the day.
 
Yup. We just have to worry about the road washing out. People we have been working on have the whole road washed out from both directions. Crazy stuff. We built on a hill, high ground. But not one that will mud slide.. Everyone is about tired of rain though. Oroville dam is a huge concern North of us. The spill way is all tore up and more water keeps coming in than can be released. Roads and bridges are washed out everywhere. And it ain't over yet by a long shot.
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Finally got out and tried to work today. SAT clearance for signal. 100 foot up (tree right next to primaries) tossing limbs and one tapped one primary causing it to pop off the insulator ( do what? :? ) . It fell off and straddled a house service making the other wire sway and popping it off two other insulators. :|: That one sat down on the cross arm and got it smoking, then a little flame. By the time the crews showed up, Sheriff, Fire and electric, tree was topped and no more smoke. :dontknow: guess it finally tripped the circuit. First time for everything. Oh well. Sent my little crew home and camped out waiting on bad news. PG & E guy asked fire Sgt.what happened (and I had told them) and they said a branch hit it. So eventually he comes to me to ask if I knew what happened. Told him I nicked it with a little limb and what happened. I asked, "you need my info for the report etc?". He said, "naw, I heard a limb hit it. That's what happened right?" I nodded my head, smiled and thanked the man. I'll go finish the trim tomorrow. One more tree to do.
 
One of those inconveniences that turned out for the better.
Got home and chipped the brush. Hauled it off, was not much and hardly worth moving a chipper for with unknown road conditions. Log into FB and ......
Les Marsden‎ to MariposAlert!
4 hrs ·

Power out in Jerseydale - went out at 10:25 this morning. And according to PG&E - it's affecting 12 (count 'em) 12 customers. Okay: which one of you knuckleheads dropped a tree on the power line??!!


There were more than a few of us tree guys dropping trees and doing line clearance today :/:

I don't have the heart to tell Les who it was... :lol:
 
I guess the PG&E guy got called away... :lol:
He said he had to get to where there was cell service. I figure thy were calling in a bigger truck since his was only a 550 with a 40' boom. All good for a service.... buttt.......
Les Marsden Power at 2:10, FWIW: still out. A PG&E truck was driving around aimlessly; came down Snyder Creek Road - stopped for awhile, backed-OUT the way it had come and: went away. And that's despite the outage line reporting a couple hours ago that crew were "on site." Ain't NOBODY nowhere. And I drove all around the area - nope. No sign of any of 'em. And they did have to update their info line, which HAD said they expected power to be restored by 1:30. Now, it claims - SPECIFICALLY, dammit: that it'll be back on by 6:31. Not 6:30, but 6:31.
 
They'll bring portable floodlights n do it at night if pressures applied.

At least round here they do.

Jomo
 
Calm cool collected n willing to help's worked well for me in such situations Stephen.

Consider it a valuable lesson learned well.

Sorta thing's inevitable if you're in this biz long enough!

Pretty soon you'll have a police searchlight built into your driver's door!

Jomo
 
I have a flashy one on top and a search on the pillar.
Naw, I was there for hours. No running off. I own my shat. In this game, it's when, not if.
Ol Les could have come and talked to us. But......... Nope.
 
I had a very similar thing happen to me Stephen but only affected my customers power. Stupidest move too. Felling a pissant understory birch to make way for the huge fir spar that had been a whole day affair to get down to a fellable spar. Knocked out my cusytys power with the birch. And when the power guys attended he gave me nearly the exact same reply. No need for my info, the call he got mentioned a tree hit the line, happens all the time. Phew. :D

Nice to get a free pass now and then.
 
Totally! I better be on game tomorrow when I do the next tree. Once the line jumped off the cross arm, the service pushed it too close to the tree
Have to wait till they hang the line again.
 
This is the row of trees concerned, behind the pole along the line. Close quarters anyway. If you zoom in you might see how the lines lie. I was working the last three furthest from the pole. The house sits right on the other side of them too. Like a hedgerow between the house and the lines. Bad spot.
 

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It happens. I've only gotten service drops but both times the power co was pretty cool about it. What are the chances that ten years apart I get the same lineman to show up. First was a dead limb that broke off on impact and flew up in the air and ripped it down. Second was a bad judgment call on a piece of wood that didn't kill power but put it on the ground. Both times the guy told me to go park around the block till he fixed it so his boss would not see a co logo and want to bill it out. Got his number saved in my phone now. He will do a service drop for me free of charge as long as I give him 24 hours notice. Unfortunately I have to deal with ten different power companies these days. At least I know I'm good with one of them.
 
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