irma

[26th-Z]

The drop to my house is fine and unbroken.  This photo is from the main line that runs down the back yards of our adjoining lots.  There is an easement there and a drainage swale.  There are actually two of these wires, unshielded, hanging from the power pole.  I'm not able to get very close to inspect all of this because the swale is full of water.  I'm thinking that the wires are actually service leaders of the three wires going from pole to pole.  And I don't think any of them are shielded.  None of the wires on the main line are.  My service drop is shielded wire/cable, however.

I heard from Carl Beck and Jim Frederick (Z Mecca).  Carl took his car up to Gainesville and rode the storm out there.  Jim reports very little damage.

[Patcon]

Utility wires that are pole to pole are all unshielded! Normally on the pole the high voltage wires are at the top and there is a ground/neutral wire that runs at the very bottom, well I take that back, telephone and cable are normally at the very bottom. The service comes in to the transformers and gets stepped down to 110v single phase...be very careful around these unshielded wires, they will kill you dead!!! I have been shocked numerous times by 110v and 277v but the voltages on the poles are something like 4400v's, one of our resident "sparkies" can confirm. That will make you crispy!!!!

[Mike]

9 hours ago, 26th-Z said:

The drop to my house is fine and unbroken.  This photo is from the main line that runs down the back yards of our adjoining lots.  There is an easement there and a drainage swale.  There are actually two of these wires, unshielded, hanging from the power pole.  I'm not able to get very close to inspect all of this because the swale is full of water.  I'm thinking that the wires are actually service leaders of the three wires going from pole to pole.  And I don't think any of them are shielded.  None of the wires on the main line are.  My service drop is shielded wire/cable, however.

I heard from Carl Beck and Jim Frederick (Z Mecca).  Carl took his car up to Gainesville and rode the storm out there.  Jim reports very little damage.

Oh, this is bad...  if this is the service feed to the neighborhood then it's likely running at a very high current.  If it's sitting in water it can be even more dangerous.  It's likely the power is shut off but I'd stay far away from that cable...