Teamwork helps linemen stay safe, get power back on

FLORENCE — Tropical Storm Fay has been pounding the coast of Florida, with mere threats of the effects heading toward the Pee Dee.

But it set local Progress Energy Carolina linemen at work in the Pee Dee thinking about their own interaction with Mother Nature.

“These trucks have been a little bit of everywhere to help out with power outages due to storms,” Dennis Hicks, a lineman with Progress Energy, said.

“When I started 23 years ago, there were 20 of us linemen and I’ve only been to a few place like Florida, but the trucks, they’ve gone to North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, New York, Oklahoma and Arkansas.”

Whether it’s a major power outage or replacing a utility pole with a new unit, teamwork is really what any person attached to a crew of linemen would say makes the job run smoothly.

Thomas Allen Denning, the distribution field supervisor for Florence operations, said lives depend on each person following the guidelines and safety measures.

“Progress is in the top decile in the nation and we lead the industry in safety,” he said. “We’re very proud of that.”

On Wednesday, Denning, Hicks, 38-year veteran Johnny Freeman, 36-year veteran Jimmy Rollins and new lineman Justin Young went out to replace a pole on South Irby Street and set a new 45-foot pole while transferring the electric settings from the old to the new.

It might sound simple, but the men had to work with more than 26,000 volts of electricity.

Each of the top three power lines on any given utility pole lets off 13,200 volts.

“It only takes 120 volts to kill someone,” Hicks said. “Ninety-five percent of the work we do, we do it hot with the power on.

“The above-ground work isn’t as scary as underground because all the stuff out here we can see. But when we bury underground, once it’s buried, you can’t see it.”

Hicks said safety and following procedures is what keeps any lineman alive.

Freeman said safety has come a long way in his field. He said he could remember a time when eye protection wasn’t important.

“When I started off, the first thing they told me was you can’t wear eyeglasses because they’d fog up when you are up there (working on a line),” he said.

“Now we’re required to wear safety goggles.”

Freeman said hard helmets weren’t required when he first began, either.

“We used to wear ball caps and now you have to wear safety helmets,” he said. “The buckets on the lifts didn’t used to have harnesses to hold you up. These are just some of the things people didn’t know were important back then.”

Freeman said he’s seen his fair share since his first day of on-the-job training, but added that safety is a big part of the job now.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s operating experiences and lessons learned report, electrical safety occurrences are the most frequently reported near miss events across the DOE complex, and thus pose the greatest risk to workers.

In 2002 and 2003, electrical safety occurrences were reported at a rate of two per week, with three-quarters of them categorized as near misses to serious injury or death.

The report, which was written in 2004, said 35 of the electrical occurrences in this two-year period involved shocks to workers. Six resulted in electrical burns.

An analysis of the electrical occurrences in 2002 and 2003 showed about 50 percent involved electrical work performed by electricians and other electrical workers who install, remove or maintain electrical equipment or components.

Denning said most people think on-the-job-related injuries for linemen occur because of electrocutions, but said that’s not an issue for his crew. It’s all in how you train the linemen.

“We train our employees intensely,” he said. “Most people think the most dangerous part of this job is climbing poles, but we’re trained to do that.

“I always say driving is the most dangerous part of our job because you can’t control the other person, that and the work site, especially when you are working our near a highway or a road.”

Freeman said linemen who have been at it for a while don’t worry about the hazards because the work is rewarding.

“When I first began, I thought there wasn’t nothing like being up at 60 feet or a 75-foot pole and seeing the sun come up,” he said. “The hardest part about the job is when you have to cut off power. Just seeing the look on that person’s face, it can really get to you.

“But there’s nothing better than the smile of a customer when you give them power back after an outage. That’s a high and there’s nothing like it.”