Barn electrical problem, to put it mildly

[jml755]

Was at the barn where we board our horse doing some electrical work on Friday. Was checking the current draw of the MAIN 200 amp panel and had just put my ammeter clamp on one of the main leg wires and heard a loud BAM and all the lights in the Barn flickered off and on. Jumped out of my shorts, wondering what I had done. Then realized it probably wasn't me. Went outside to see what the noise was and saw the attached. Grain truck had snagged the calbe & phone lines going across the driveway. Same pole was snagged a few weeks ago by the sawdust semi-truck and replaced. Looks like they didn't raise the lines high enough again on the replacement pole. The grain truck has been coming here for 10-15 yrs every month using the same driveway.

Power stayed on until they cut it to remove the pole. Was only without power for a couple of hours. Total time from BAM to crew waving goodbye: 4.5 hrs. Made for an interesting afternoon, between the fire response and utility crews.

[JazzDad]

Oh, Man. He got the cable TV, too!

[jml755]

JazzDad,
Actually, the wire he snagged was an "unused" cable TV wire. The owner had switched some time ago to a differenct provider and her new TV feed came from the other side of the property. Utility guy said, "I'll fix that so it doesn't happen again" and went over and cut the cable before it crossed the driveway. He said the cable TV company would probably be out shortly as cutting it like that left it "unterminated" and caused lots of interference on the line. Sure enough, within an hour I saw a Cable Company truck on the main road with the guy walking along the shoulder looking up at the wires and scratching his head. LOL. The utility crew leader took a lot of ribbing as HE was the guy on the pole replacement couple weeks ago who supervised the wires being put back up.

Also, I would not have thought the "fuse" or weak link in the distribution system was the 14" diameter Southern Pine pole. The wires probably stretched a little but held up to a truck with 8-10 tons of grain coming down the driveway at probably 10-12 MPH. Stopped it dead in its tracks.

[JazzDad]

It's a pretty small wire that stops a 25 ton Hawkeye on a carrier deck.