Shoot, our little town offered free meals when tornadoes hit our county. The women folks got together and made meals and would drive around passing out lunches to any workers they found from out of town. Heck, our Union ordered meals and distributed them to linemen whether they were Union or not.

I worked a lot of storms in several states and Canada, only once a flatlander tried to drive down a road we closed as the trees and wire were all over. He didn't get far, hes probably still there! Always well treated, the kitchen help even stayed open on Chirstmas eve to feed us and gave us some fried chicken to take with us, the sun came up and we had Chirstmas "dinner", at least it had feathers! Been over 20 years since I've been on a pole, would do it all over again only double!

Oh the stories I could tell . I've been yelled at cussed at ,threatened , had a nut job point a gun at me when I was up a pole ( pretty much nowhere to hide ) and this was all from people I was HELPING get there power back !
Most people treated us great when we would first show up but as the days turn to weeks some people freak out and get downright mean . I always said we went from heros to zeros once the lights came back on . Anyways I've been retired for ten years now but would do it all over again !

Nothing surprises me about Houston and some of the surrounding cities. Nothing but a crap hole!

In that case I'm sure no one here would object if we issued you a bubba redneck card to replace it.

Meh they took that one a few months back when eveyone though I was saying any white person with a rebel flag was racist

I had the blessing to go to Alaska when I was in college and stay with a close family friend that lived there. He was a lineman and worked on the Kenai.
I was in my twenties then, and he was close to 3X my age, but he was a beast of a man when it came to endurance, strength, and perseverance. I would go out with him and he'd throw a 36" stihl chainsaw on his back, all his gear and put snow shoes on to get to where folks were having an outage. One day, a little town called Hope was out of electricity, I went with him and tried to carry things to help, but he could do it all himself. We hiked down that ROW through the snow; him carrying everything on his back to fix it. He found the problem cause he was that good, crawled up that pole and fixed the little town right up. Lots of people came out from that little town to thank him.

Linemen certainly don't get the praise they deserve.

As far as Houston goes. Yes, its a craphole, but DEI is probably why people are dying because Centerpoint cant get the power on after a week.
Who you put in leadership matters. Biden and the last 4 years is a perfect example.

It sucks hauling in everything that you think you might need, only to find out it’s a blown transformer…..no access…lol. Haul most of the gear back, go and get the equipment you need to change it off the stick. The Milwaukee stuff in the last few years sure make life a lot easier.

Here’s a link to a FB vid….
https://fb.watch/tm6cDQ50oa/?

I worked in a village hydro utility for 36 years, most of the time , just myself. Had a few bad storms , both wind and ice. The one that stands out, was an ice storm started on the opeening day of deer season. I hunted the opening morning, by night ,the whole utility was shut down. Actually , I shut it down , before the lines burned down.. I had good help from several local utilities, Local firemen a nd volanteers . By about the Thursday , things were , coming togather. I was just about tapped out , body and mind. About mid afternoon, I got my old 243 sav, and went hunting. By near dark, I shot a nice 4 point, Funny how that changes your attitude. Old243

My one grandson is an apprentice linesman and his dad is a linesman that was on Katrina people don’t understand it’s a dangerous job and they bring the power with them you can put up lines all day long but if there isn’t juice it doesn’t matter. Lost power here in 2006 ice storm for 9 days wired a plug in cord to the furnace on the breaker box and lived fine off the generator, stuff like that makes a person realize how cheap electricity is

When you change over a pole like this energized and leave all the cut off hardware on our material stores loading dock to strip, and get in crap from their supervisor for leaving a safety hazard on the dock......you start thinking "this is a safety hazard?".....LOL

A fellow lineman I’ve worked with over the past 20 years died this morning on a trouble call. Not much for details yet, but electricity was a factor. RIP Kyle Spalding, a brother from another mother.

Very sad to hear prayers for him and the family

Stick the power underground and lives would be better.....except for yours.....

$$$$ to install and more time & $$$ to repair when Lil Johnny finds it with his hoe. Overhead is exposed but easy and cheap to fix. Play safe out there.

Not to mention emergency generators that some schmuck is too cheap to isolate from the line, causing a reverse voltage.

It’s all speculation right now and we all know which rules we can bend. Was he the first one scene with his partner showing up to see him hanging from his belt and had to do pole top rescue?…...sure hope not. We practice it every year but hope we never have to do it.

Prayers sent for the family and the coworkers . My son’s company lost a worker this past week on some underground don’t know any details besides said he was pulling in some new underground.