15 Jan
2010
15 Jan
'10
7:16 p.m.
On 15 Jan 2010 at 12:56, Brian Lanning wrote:
> I'm also reminded of the time I was working at
IBM. The power
went
out for our entire office building. We looked out the
window and
could follow the line of orange flags a couple hundred feet to a
backhoe. I guess even when you mark where the wires are, that's no
guarantee.
About 6 years ago, the local utility decided to redo all of the power
distribution in the neighborhood. It's basically 6600V direct-bury
cable, with a disconnect box at the head of, and branch wiring buried
along one's driveway to a transformer sitting on a pad in the front
yard. All of this was being replaced.
The utility didn't want to disconnect the loop for two weeks while
they worked on it so they did live replacement of segments. About 3
or 4 times a day, you'd hear a loud "bang" when the backhoe hit the
live wiring--the power would go off until someone reset the
distribution breaker.
Apparently this is the way things are done routinely by my utility.
When Silicon Valley was going through its 70's commercial building
craze, the power would often go out at the CDC facility in Sunnyvale.
When the lights went out and the machines fell silent, you'd hear a
collective groan on the machine floor, people would grab their cards
and tapes and head back to the cubes, because you weren't going to
see any system up for at least the rest of the day. Overtime for the
CE's, however was good news.
--Chuck