john, if there is a sizable outage, he's a rich lineman..... that means he's
prolly on double time..... ;-)
as someone else mentioned..... there is a litany that goes like this
from the load dispatcher.....
"i understand that at this time, i have a clearance to apply personal shorts
and grounds on rack three, position fifteen......"
before a utility worker has clearance to work on anything, he must be issued
a clearance, that is traceable to the load dispatcher, perhaps handed thru a
line patrolman, and he must place personal shorts grounding all phases, and
shorting them together. overhead transmission must have them on both
sides of the clearance.
unless shorts and grounds are on stuff, it is considered hot, and is worked
as such.
and we all know that if you open the main, and lock the panel door so it can't
be reclosed, you can backfeed a house, and not put upstream people at risk.
and in an emergency, people have done things like that.
but an emergency isn't telling someone beforehand how to do something
they aren't qualified to do. that's just irresponsible.
