pic: Not the end of the Rainbow, but ....

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I forget you are in a different part of the country so ground conditions are different. Here in Illinois, I have witnessed down lines that dance as ground water repeatedly seeps close enough for arc over and the resulting steam burst throws the end of the line around. Not the kind of arcing people see on TV or the movies but interesting none the less. These are the kind of things that elelctrical workers are exposed to all the time that the general public knows nothing about. Risky business!
Was the line hit by lightning or just downed through some other storm related event? A few years ago, I was watching out my back door during a lighting storm when a 113kV line was struck a few miles away. An arc over occured in a yard behind my where the service line drooped low. Arcwas about 16 ft. to ground from the low spot on the line. I am very near the end of the distro for my neighborhood, only one transformer after my house before the end of the line. Everything between my house and the intial strike was tripped. A lot of fuses were replaced that night.

[skimoose]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Was the line hit by lightning or just downed through some other storm related event?

Both events I described were direct hits to the distribution system. There were lots of tall trees in the vicinity but I couldn't find any evidence of the strikes hitting the trees. One strike was a direct hit on the pole itself. The pole top was split with a 3" exit hole about a foot down from the pole top bracket which then discharged into the lower arm brackets.

[KenWittlief]

Personally I like huge thunderstorms. I assume everyone allready knows this: sound travels at approximately 1000 feet per second. When you see lightning and start counting off the seconds till you hear the thunder, you can measure how far away the lightning bolt hit the ground.

1 second is about one city block away. Half a second is 500 feet. When you get one of those you know something right in your neighborhood got hit!

If you see the direction of the lightning you might be able to go out after the storm and find the spot where it hit. Sometimes its easy to find, things like a tree with half the limbs and bark blown off one side!

Man... I'm missing out on fun storms like that here in Cali. All I get is the ground shaking under my feet... Which gives you quite a sense for the scale of the earth, feeling what is just a tiny movement of pieces of the crust....

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by 114ManualLabor

Man... I'm missing out on fun storms like that here in Cali. All I get is the ground shaking under my feet... Which gives you quite a sense for the scale of the earth, feeling what is just a tiny movement of pieces of the crust....

I'd rather have nasty thunderstorms and tornados than earthquakes anyday. I've seen about 5 or so tornados actually form in my life. One came down in the cornfield behind my house and went away from my house thankfully.

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Personally I like huge thunderstorms.

I always think I like huge thunderstorms, but recently we have had the kind that scare the bejeebers out of me! Today I saw twin lightning bolts come down, they had to be a city block apart, as straight as straight could be and on either sode of the road I was traveling on. Makes you go WOW
I'm glad I wasn't at the end of them! And I certainly wasn't going to go look for any rainbows that they left behind!
Oh no, they are starting up again, about 3 seconds from flash to sound... no matter what the calculation is, I'd better get off my computer, even with the surge protector, we've lost the router before!

[KenWittlief]

Penfield - I was just going to say, speaking of Tstorms! We got one right now here in Fairport, NY

We have made some significant improvements over the years. All I have to do is reach over and pull the charger plug on my laptop, and Im running on a 'free UPS for 3 hours', completely isolated from the grid.

No chance of getting zapped through my cellphone either!