junkhound
Senior Member
- Location
- Renton, WA
- Occupation
- EE, power electronics specialty
Midwest central IL wind storms, over 50% of city power out, brother who lives there expects to be out another few days.
the whoops: poco substation near brother blew and caught fire. as part of temporary power restoration, poco* installed HV xfmr on trailer in brothers back yard (just a week after he resedeed!). Power back on for a few hours, BUT, told that in the rush a ground wire was draped over a HV line, which arced when HVinsulatin failed after a few hours (rubbed thru after a few hours of additional winds?) and caught the wood power pole on fire, FD cannot put out fire till power turned off so arcing does more damage. Another big mess, so now a few days still to go to get power back.
guess moral of story is don't forget the details when doing a 'quick, temporary" power restoration task.
Brother says one kind neighbor still has gas water heater with pilot light, so has made a basement shower available for the neighborhood folks.
* I worked for the poco involved 56 years ago, name omitted to avoid association <G>
the whoops: poco substation near brother blew and caught fire. as part of temporary power restoration, poco* installed HV xfmr on trailer in brothers back yard (just a week after he resedeed!). Power back on for a few hours, BUT, told that in the rush a ground wire was draped over a HV line, which arced when HVinsulatin failed after a few hours (rubbed thru after a few hours of additional winds?) and caught the wood power pole on fire, FD cannot put out fire till power turned off so arcing does more damage. Another big mess, so now a few days still to go to get power back.
guess moral of story is don't forget the details when doing a 'quick, temporary" power restoration task.
Brother says one kind neighbor still has gas water heater with pilot light, so has made a basement shower available for the neighborhood folks.
* I worked for the poco involved 56 years ago, name omitted to avoid association <G>