My wife and I just watched some guys with the COOLEST JOB EVER!!! We live in what our electric co-op claims is the hardest hit area of Texas in the recent cold snap and were without electricity for 15 days. Being in the country, that means no water either as we have a water well. Remedial ops are still in full swing. A major LCRA transmission line run across our ranch which is south of where we live. Apparently a few of their big lines went down over a large area. The terrain is really rough and remote. So now, as part of the rebuilding, they are hauling guys around from pole to pole suspended from a helicopter at the end of a long rope as they work on the tops of the poles!!! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?! It's like riding on a big amusement park ride all day and getting paid for it! BTW, all the finger pointing over the power failures is BS. NO ONE could have prepared for the repeated alternating waves of ice and snow that collapsed lines, snapped poles and toppled trees and branches. The iced up windmills and snow-covered solar panels under a week of heavy cloud cover, simply added insult to injury. That just piled on the issues with a few of the conventional plants being taken down by line failures. Nature trumps man. So we get up, fix things, take precautions and hunker down to see what comes at us next.
(pic below)
We watched these guys fly around for three or four hours today in our area. There were actually two guys doing the pole-top work. The copter would drop one on a pole and then leave him and fly away, I guess to check on the other man. They were both working on the pole in the pic at one point.
An old pic of the terrain is attached. This is my brother and me looking down the line ROW. Just above the tip of his finger and you can make out the pole the guy in the above pic is working on. This is a few years ago and all of the lines were up.
There isn't a diaper big enough to allow me to do something like that.
I heard this clanging sound, sort of dull and somewhat faint. I was wondering all day what it was. Now I know- it was that guys balls knocking together. Holy crap that's impressive! :notworthy:
Right there with you Toonces. I'd be screaming so loud they could hear me in Wyoming. :hide:
They don't pay those guys enough. Your post reminded me of this video I saw on YT some time back. :o
Quote from: steve58 on March 06, 2021, 12:25:03 PM
They don't pay those guys enough. Your post reminded me of this video I saw on YT some time back. :o
Where is the person taking this video and what the heck is he doing there?
My wife took video of the helicopter we saw landing the man on the pole and him unlatching the line. I'll see if i can get her to post it.
^Might have been shot from a drone.
Well, today they are out hauling all kinds of stuff by helicopter - poles, baskets, people...
My wife took this picture from the porch. Bigger choppers today! And a lot of them! It has to be expensive to replace poles this way, but a lot of the sites are inaccessible any other way unless you are an adventurous teen on foot with plenty of time. Even a horse cannot get to some of these places.