aside from the inconvenience and financial loss....im sure the potential for electrocution of anyone touching the equipment at the time it hit the line would be high....that company is gona get a big bill... https://www.aol.com/article/weather...housands-flee-nc-outer-banks-island/23058199/
I read one article and it didn't mention whether or not locates were done. We've had some that were waaaay off so that's a possibility. Either way it's a bad deal. We won't stick an auger in the ground without all of them.
Somebody isn't coming into work after that one... They're lucky somebody didn't get killed, hit 1 wire right in half, 2 others damaged
I don't do any marine work so I wonder how they mark utilities underwater in the bay? If they're building a bridge, that power cable is still under water out there in the way of the other caissons that are to be placed.
Initially, I'd have bet even money that it was a bad locate, because seriously, how could you drive casing without thinking you were well clear of everything, but a followup story seems to indicate that it was more of a brain fart on the part of the construction guys. https://outerbanksvoice.com/2017/07...eing-set-aside-when-it-cut-power-to-hatteras/ I can see forgetting about something that's not right there where you intend to do the actual work. And you think you've had a bad day at work a time or two?
If that's the case I'd call it a major brain fart!!! Idk why you'd store one that way, you'd have to yank it out to move it or even worse grab the vibro hammer to rattle it back out. If it's laying on the ground it can't fall and a forklift or whatever can grab it and relocate to wherever. Geez
The news gets things wrong all the time, so I tend not to take what they say at face value. We almost busted one of 2 24" water lines on my current project that one call missed. Junkyard there are multiple reasons to store them that way. I can tell you your not going to pick the casing they use up with a fork lift.
Half of what we use you wouldn't either. I haven't read any of the articles other than what was quoted above. Just seems like an unusual way to store it to me. Either way it's a bad deal regardless of who screwed the pooch on it
Don't forget they were on the water and the cable that got cut was under water. I've seen pile pushed into the mud and secured upright to the end of the barge in deep water when the barge was secured in position. Either way its going to get spendy for someone. I'm surprised they let them within 500 ft of it. We pulled up a underwater power line feeding a duck club on a island in Suisuin Cut, in CA one time when pulling anchor. Seen it and dropped the anchor and it slid off. They marked it as a power crossing after that.
Oh, I'll be the first one to agree with you on that, but this information seems to have come directly from a spokesperson, and has enough detail to it that it's believable, at least to me. There's a picture included in the article I linked to that shows the location to be on land. I'll bet they get tagged with the lost revenue for every business in town, and the cost of everybody's ruined vacation, on top of whatever the repairs cost. There's another article on the same site that tells about the class action lawsuit that's already been filed. What probably nobody is going to bother talking about is why such critical infrastructure is vulnerable to a "single point of failure."
You have that right..lol...most of our infrastructure is vulnerable and can easily be taken out..just dont tell the terrorists or someone wanting to cause some major issues..........The one question I have is, the equipment used to pound or drill in the posts, is it protected from electrical shock( electrocution ) just in case what happened happens? noone was hurt this time, but was it just dumb luck or were there safety measures in place? unrelated, but the same question with horizontal drilling, are the machines insulated or grounded to prevent human fatalities if a power line is hit?..
It's a miracle no one got killed in that brain fart. The team had to know the main power cable to the island was running through job site. Begs the question why the main power line running to the island at the least wasn't encased in concrete. Not that concrete would've kept the casing from damaging it but just for the occasional strike by lighter equipment.
With a population of 4000 and this the only road access, it would be pretty hard to build an alternate path both economically and practically. What gets me is that in the picture with the yellow and red marks, you can clearly see the wires turning underground. It's not like it should have been a surprise to anyone on site that the wires were present in the vicinity. You would think if they were driving a pile anywhere in that area that they would have information that led them to believe the wires were elsewhere. ???
I missed that article. I was going by a news report that said it was a underwater line. Here's the local update. https://pilotonline.com/news/local/...cle_79976a90-e951-5ccd-8ccf-987beaaa66e3.html
Oh I see, so technically they are underwater... once you dig through the dirt 9 feet. I always wonder what people were thinking when things get hit because it seems so obvious where the utilities were when looking at the site...
...and then comes OSHA as their next problem, if there's anything left. I'm still wondering if we're hearing all of the story though. The media filter tends to be biased.
Having worked in the emergency services it can't be stated enough how bad they get the facts when it hits the printed page even when you saw the reporter taking down notes and heard the same things he heard. It is just unbelievable how bad they get the facts usually every single time.
It also seems a little odd to me that they can't have this island up in a day or two on rental power. Back of the envelope says 2 megawatt, single semi trailer ought to be able to cover most needs. Worst case maybe two of them. Thoughts?
Somewhere I read that they trucked generators to the island, two of them didn't run and the other ones couldn't hook to the electrical grid because they had the wrong hook ups. Okay- found the article, I was wrong on numbers , but it seems they had troubles hooking them up. Shouldn't be that hard to hook up some jumpers? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...toration-ocracoke-hatteras-islands/522591001/
That article I linked said they were doing rolling power outages as they did not have enough portable generator power. When we installed three 1.5 meg Cats at Mayo Hospital in Eau Claire they said they would each power about 700 average homes. At 9,000 homes without power it will take some serious portable power. Figure 13 each 3516 Cat 1.5 meg units using 120 gallons of fuel per hour each. YUP, Its going to get spendy.
Well it is more than just jumpers but with this kind of power if 4/9 were not able to be hooked up right away then either they hired the wrong rental company or somebody at the utility needs to be re-educated. Maybe it was the same guy who marked out the cables. Or maybe the news got that story wrong as well.
Electricity takes the shortest path to ground. In this case, the end of the casing as it went through the cable. Same goes for a horizontal drill. An excavator or backhoe would be capable of being dangerous to someone in close proximity to it, since the bucket could pull the cable up out of the dirt, and leave the tracks or stabilizers (and possibly a bystander) as a potential.
I knew that first part..I would just think for added protection there was some device or protective gear that would protect the operator in case they hit electric and it didnt ground out at point of contact..
Like what? a GFCI sensor tied back to the nearest substation? If the operator is in a cab they're relatively safe. The "boots on the ground" are the ones in danger, not too much that can be done to protect them, besides keeping they're feet together and don't touch anything.
Most of the time, a line of this class will have a ring of grounded shield conductors around the live conductor in the center so it will ground itself out and short to itself and trip the protection before current flows elsewhere. But when you are talking about power of this magnitude, even a little bit of leakage that didn't get trapped can still be deadly. Look at it another way, 120 volts can be deadly but if a little leakage led to 1/10th of that being touched that would be 12 volts and not generally hazardous. However if this is a 69,000 volt line, or more probably a 138,000 volt line then a tenth or even a hundredth of that would still kill you quite dead.