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.