Rural Missouri - April 2024 - 17

Left: Charlie and Adam discuss their next job after troubleshooting blinking lights at a member's home. Right: Charlie works out of a bucket
truck most of the time. But his pole-climbing skills - a requisite for lineman - still get used when it's too wet or icy to get the truck to the pole.
" My daughter got married in October, " Charley recalls.
" When she planned it, I didn't have my on-call schedule.
I was actually on call. So, I had to trade. Most of the time
the guys will trade so we don't miss things. But you do
miss some. I actually missed my daughter getting baptized.
I've missed birthdays. "
The trade-off is the knowledge that you helped others,
he says. That's especially true on the big outages like
the ice storm that hit southwest Missouri in 2007. It was
harley's first ig storm  thin  wored  and a hal
hours straight before we got to go home, " he says. " I'm like,
'What in the world did I get myself into?' "
He's worked hurricanes in Louisiana and most recently
a maor windstorm in entucy in  e're getting to
help people, " he says. " It's neat. Like we got a trailer park
on that was out for two weeks. We got the power on and
the whole trailer park lit up. Everybody was whooping and
hollering and screaming. "
2:20 p.m., near Phillipsburg: After a quick lunch the
phone rings again and the two are off on another long drive
for their next job. As the wind picks up a member reports
blinking lights. hey insect the meter and find everything
in good shape near the home. Now they turn detective and
troubleshoot the source of the roblem. harley finds it at
the transformer. A fuse is loose.
He goes up in the bucket to attach a truck ground to the
neutral wire using a hotstick, another safety step. Then he
can make the repair. When this job is complete a similar
roblem is called in. his time the fix is harder to find. dam
changes the meter for the member, and they tell him to call
back if the issue continues.
Laclede Electric's linemen frequently change roles so
they can do any task sent their way. That's important for
when major outages take place and it's all hands on deck.
" I've always enjoyed service work more, because it just
seems like my day goes by faster, " Charley says. " But
they'll rotate us so we'll do construction where you set
poles and do conversions. We can all do everything. "
Linemen work in all kinds of weather, from balmy spring
days to the scorching heat of summer and below zero days
like the past January brought. " The hardest part is keeping
your hands warm, " Charley says.
He adds that linemen are encouraged to take breaks to
avoid frostbite or overheating. " They are really good at taking
care of us. If you are doing too much and overheating
or getting too cold, it's really on you, " he says.
3:40 p.m., west of Lebanon: Wind gusts are pounding
the area now and the inevitable happens. A tree located
outside of the co-op's right of way breaks and falls across a
line. Several homes are without power.
Charley and Adam join another crew searching for the
roblem. hey find the doned line near a en of cattle.
Before repairs are made, they climb a fence and do a " lock
out, tag out " on the breaker that controls this line. This
ensures any crew that follows knows someone is working
on the line.
They get the limb off and the line straightened out so
Adam can splice it from the bucket. Before he comes down,
he trims back some limbs and fixes a kink in the line that
could become a future issue. They pull their warning tag
off the pole and kick in the breaker using a hotstick. The
breaker holds, so this outage is over.
It's 6:30 p.m., past the normal quitting
time, when Charley and Adam complete
their last job of the day. This one takes
them back to Long Lane here they fix
another wind-related problem that has
caused a line to sag.
Lebanon
They head for home, knowing
it could start all over again before
morning comes.
APRIL 2024 | RURALMISSOURI.COOP 17

http://www.RURALMISSOURI.COOP

Rural Missouri - April 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - April 2024