Defeating Freezes and Breezes

Linemen restore power following inclement weather

March’s weather may have the reputation for being tempestuous, but late fall and early winter made similar impacts to the eastern Alabama power grid, too.

Strong thunderstorms — including a brief tornado — triggered more than 2,500 outages on Coosa Valley Electric Cooperative’s system on Nov. 30. Less than a month later, bitter cold and high winds created widespread outages for a few days, giving CVEC linemen a different set of challenges to face.

Pole positioning

As warm and cold air clashed in the Coosa Valley in late November, several lines of thunderstorms passed through CVEC’s service territory. In their wake, those storms left several large pockets of outages — including in an area between Lincoln and Ohatchee.

The next day, the National Weather Service in Birmingham confirmed an EF-0 tornado with maximum winds of 75 mph had affected the area. Crew chief Allen Henderson and his team replaced two broken poles along County Line Road the next day.

“We knew high winds caused it,” Henderson says. “There were trees down in a few spots here and there.”

To replace the poles, the crew determined the type of poles needed and loaded the necessary materials to complete the job. Once arriving on the jobsite, they ensured all the wiring involved was grounded.

They then prepared the new pole for installation by framing it and installing the crossarms used to hold the wire. Next, they removed the damaged pole before installing the new one.

Once the new pole was installed, the crews hung the power lines and reconnected them to the grid.

Pole replacement projects can take various lengths of time to complete, Henderson says. “It’s depending on what type of pole it is and the damage it suffered,” he says. “You could be out there doing a replacement all night long. Some of them are a couple of hours long.”

Chilly days

When winter cold fronts pass through the South, Arctic air arrives via high winds. While those winds caused some of the outages that occurred on Dec. 22 or 23, a generational cold snap triggered the others.

For more than 48 hours, temperatures never climbed above freezing. Overnight lows approached the single digits. The bone-chilling cold caused members to operate heating sources for longer periods of time, and the extra demand caused seven transformers to overheat and fail.

At the highest point, roughly 800 members lost power at one time. It took several crews working several hours to make all repairs, but they were done before the coldest weather settled in on Christmas Eve.

“Our recent outage responses are a testament to the dedication and skill level of our linemen,” says Jon Cullimore, CVEC general manager. “No one wants to endure an outage, especially during periods of extreme temperatures. Our guys understood that and answered the call accordingly. We thank them for their efforts.”