Seeking a field worker for a utility company

I used to work for a power company, but I worked on the power generation and environmental side. You might want to call a company like Pike Electric. They provide electrical contract services to Duke Energy and other power companies. Duke Energy is Pike's largest customer. Power companies farm out lots of the line work to contractors so they don't have to keep the extra staff in-house. Since they are a smaller company, they might be more willing to help you.

You can contact Pike at http://www.pikeelectric.com/general.html

Uh ... I called a friend who works for Arizona Public Service ... if you crash into a telephone pole they tell the cops to call the phone company.

Two critical factors:
How bad is the crash in terms of personal injury?
Did any lines break?

And what's the weather and terrain like?

I was a linesman for BT in the UK and could probably give you some help. The technologies and procedures maybe similar but I doubt the terminology will be the same. Also, that was quite a few years ago and no doubt some of the rules and procedures will have changed.
The prime consideration when attending a pole smash is to ensure the safety of the general public whilst not endangering yourself. PM me if you'd like some more help with details on what happens/ used to happen over here.
Here's a little story about an old linesman's trick for you:
When I started working for the GPO as a linesman in '72 there were still 'open wires' strung between poles. These wires weren't covered in any way and relied on space and porcelain insulators to keep them apart.
Over the years these wires would stretch and sag and then, when the wind caught them they'd wrap up causing short circuits or low insulation resistance faults.
The correct way to fix 'em was to climb the pole and retension the wires with a ratchet and tongs.
But what we used to do was drive our vans up onto the pavement and whack the pole with the bumper to shake the wires apart.
This was fine when I had an old Morris Thousand van, but the first time I did it with my brand new, shiney, Bedford HA, the entire front end wrapped itself around the pole.
Who says cowboys come from America?
Yippee-yi-oh!

I can't help you with the lineman part of it but I can tell you what happens from the police/fire side of it.

When a car hits a pole, the police are sent, obviously because it's a car accident. The fire department is also sent, they stand by on the scene until a repair crew is sent and then stick around to direct traffic or close the road if need be. Fire dispatch calls the electric or phone company (or both sometimes) dispatch and gives them a ton of information...seriously, they ask everything except for my mothers maiden name, including pole number, is it pole to pole or pole to house, is the pole broken, are the lines down, are they crossing a road, is the person trapped in the car. It's endless. Then they give you a confirmation number that is practically useless unless you need a new ATM pin number or something because if you call back and try to reference it, they can't find it in the system. Then they promise to call back with an ETA which they never do. It usually takes anywhere from 2 to 4 hours for the repair crew to show up in our area because we're fairly rural and they're calling the guys at home and the repair crew is usually at least an hour away. Basically, everyone cringes when a car hits a pole because it's an all night (or day) process for everyone involved.

Telephone and electric are two different utilities.

Your scenario sounds like the lineman is working on the electric lines?

I would think the meter reader would be the first to notice a dramatically higher electric bill at a residence. Or even an accounting drone at the main office might notice the higher usage. Meter readers sometimes have an exciting life, too, having to get in and out of folks' yards in one piece what with dogs, hornets, poison ivy and so on.

As an aside -- I worked the switchboard for the power company one summer. If someone had called with questions like yours I would have wondered if they'd been disconnected and were going to risk electrocution by trying to reconenct at the pole

Good luck with your story.

Ann

Hmmmm, hmmm, hmmmmm.

I see what you are after but there is a lot of technical problems here. Hmmm.

Let me think on this for a little while. it is unlikely that the story will follow like that. Linemen are different than Electricians. They clear and check faults but they do not check current in troubleshooting. It is unlikely that a Lineman would clamp a primary line with an Amprobe. In addition the pole climber would open the primary fuses prior to climbing to ensure the lines are dead. they would not lock them in again until the pole is temporarily righted or made safe pending permanent repair.

But you are looking for a way this Lineman would notice that the meter was bypassed and current theft was taking place.

The meter reader would not catch this because the lines are jumped out at the line side, prior to metering.

Let me sleep on it to see if I can come up with a technically safe scenario.

(I am a Master Electrician and a certified Lineman, also certified and licensed in most trades. Long story)

I think we have a winner here

Ann

This would work, or a variation:

The lineman will take care to pull the primary fuses thus killing the power to the transformer feeding a pair or a cluster of homes. From the transformer, each home or business is fed from a separate cable sized for their anticipated load. A normal size house with pool is generally 200 amps. Old houses were 60 amps but as more appliances became popular they went to 100 then 150 now 200 is standard although I am wired for 400 amps. use whatever you want.
If the pole was damaged, the lineman will go up to the transformer and inspect the connections and make repairs as necessary. The utility wires are usually aluminum cables.

While there he can notice discoloring and brittleness on one set supplying your place of interest. He (or she) can become concerned and comment to the authorities that the place should be inspected because he sees signs of aluminum fatigue.

The person he tells could ask what that is, and he can explain that overloading of the cable causes it. He would be confused because the cables are properly sized and the fatigue this cable has acts as if it has double the load.

Linemen like to show off their knowledge so he would go off on a technical binge and start explaining that the process is called electromigration …..

You can trail him off for effect in the middle of his speech as your hero puts 2 + 2 together and does whatever you want him or her to do.

Does that help?