Wednesday 11 August 2010

High wire act - hydro plants poles

There are those who consider hydro fair game.
I do not.

For someone who spent 10 days without power in Ice Storm '98, and 30 hours without power in that big North American power shutdown, plus three days without power in August, 2006, due to the hurricane...well, we love our hydro workers, as well as First Responders here in  Ontario.

After the responses to Josephine Loves the Garbage Truck, I knew many would like to see this event.

On the upper left, the crew boss prepares the men before they begin to lift the new pole up to pop it into the hole. We all need a plan of attack!

Here in my small town of Bala, we are raising the roof on a new Habitat for Humanity Muskoka project. Of course, they need a new hydro pole.

I created a separate blog for this building event, as it is a short-term project, and one that I can check on every day.

I find it interesting to look at the photos from day-to-day. You might like them, too, as you can see how a vacant lot becomes a house, thanks to many hands.

Today's post, however, honours those who ensure that we have power.

On this day, Aug. 10th, 2010,  they raised a pole after much hard work.

The prep is extensive. My father-in-law died in 1952, doing such work. I trust that we have learned much from industrial accidents.

These rubber thingies protect the wires. 

For those who like trucks, and my male readers do comment on these! - you can click below and see the videos I made of the big event in Bala.

There had been a fire in the spruce tree the day before, and they had to install taller poles, since the adjacent homeowner would not allow the trees to be cut.



Acting chief, Schneider, deputy Quinton patrol the scene
Our faithful acting Fire Chief, Jim Schneider, could be spotted on the scene today, checking things out.


Habitat Bala #1 hydro truck

 Habitat Bala #2 hydro pole arrives

 Habitat Bala #3 Hydro installing pole




I created a video last year of Hydro crews:
Drilling the Muskoka rock - 2
in order to replace the old poles in our rocky Precambrian Shield. This isn't work for chumps!


Tricky work



They corkscrew it in
High wire act

Dumping in sand at the base


Wires and cherry pickers
The homes have walls now

Mother of all drills

Lots of trees

Attach part A to B

Three poles to go in today

Jenn's new buddy Frank and his pal

3 comments:

W.C.Camp said...

I knew one of these linesman guys a long time ago. They work very hard in difficult conditions. I am scared to work on normal electricity much less thousands of volts 30 feet in the air! Nice post! W.C.C.

Lorac said...

I have done a lot of training for hydro in the past. They are indeed hard working guys!

Judy said...

We were so lucky in the ice storm - power was only out for a few hours! But there was the tornado that went through Woodstock, Ontario, where I grew up in 1979. My young nephews wanted to know why my mother didn't turn on the lights when it got dark.

PS I love your technical language - the rubber thingies, indeed!