Cutting a high-voltage power line - video

[Toolmaker51]

thoughts of 'how in hell' so much infrastructure gets in place. One piece at a time.
Every week it seems that a complete wing generator passes through the town neatest where I live 3 trucks hauling the blades 1 hauling the turbine hub 1 hauling the Nacell ( the main body ) I don't know if the generator and all of the switch gear is inside or not, 1 truck hauling the top of the tower that has the swivel and 5 to 6 hauling the tower sections
""Wind power in Texas consists of many wind farms with a total installed nameplate capacity of 21,044 MW[1][2] from over 40 different projects. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state.[3] Wind power accounted for 12.63% of the electricity generated in Texas in the 12 months ending Oct 2016.[1]""

Agreed 100%, Frank S. Yet in the last 150 miles of my trip, after recalling what I've seen hauled overland in respect to the generator components, many other supporting actions came to mind. Excavators, graders, concrete and forms, cranes, rigging, all those operators, electricians and who knows how many other labor contributions...When these generators were first prototyped, the blades were spar-milled a lot like spars of aircraft wings. Few were made, realizing power consumed to do so, delayed offset of coal fired electric power. Hand laid fiberglass was next, I believe also first large scale use of carbon-fiber materials shortly thereafter.

When I taught middle and high school STEM presentations, tying facets of STEM together around manufacturing, we would list as many operations they could conceive needed to produce and market an item; shoes, inkpen, cell phone, ream of paper, breakfast cereal, whatever they chose to unravel. It would run through the entire day, concurrent with other discussions, where Science, Technology, Engineering, (or) Math were covered. So, would end up with dozens of considerations in their "all-encompassing" itemization. As facilitators we'd offer those too, but not in excess detail, just to trigger another flurry of 'what about' this or that.
Somewhere, not too close to days end, I'd field something like "There just can't be anything else?" "Right?" Often they emit sighs of relief or NO WAY! at that.
A favorite comeback of mine was "...so didn't someone make paint spraying equipment, for enough wheels of an entire fleet of delivery trucks...". The NO WAY became even louder.
Few things mean more to me, than being a cog in this machine we know as "Manufacturing".

And I'll side with Marv; Judge Judy doesn't warrant the risk to high-voltage wire men; but at the same time USA is a gold-medalist when it comes to certain utilities and respective codes, especially NEC, UPC, & NFPA.

[Frank S]

If it were just a matter of Susie homemaker missing Judge Judy or Tommy couch potato missing a re run of the family guy I would have to agree with Marv However we all know that life is much more involved than that to shut down the line might have effected several thousand small and large business putting countless number of workers out of work for who knows how long this would also have probably effected many Emergency service facilities as well as critical life care facilities, Financial corporations communications operations and the list goes on and on and on.
Killing a high voltage power line by opening the contacts at a power station or substation does not imeadiatly kill the line virtually everything down-line becomes potentially a capacitor or a back feed generator for a while which means not only does the switch need to be opened but the line must be de-energized and subsequently Earthed to ground for the period of the repairs being made. Replacing old power lines with new ones is even more involved as the new line will become energized just laying on the ground with static electricity.
My hat is off to the guys who have to work in these environments As a young-ling for a while I worked at a company which designed and manufactured high tension stringing equipment. One of my later business partners actually held several patents for some of that machinery but he also had patents on a design for 20 ft diameter a hydraulic motor which was being developed to rotate the turret of the big guns in battle ships of which only the prototype was ever made due to the era of the ending of the requirement to build another battle ship but that is another story.

[Ralphxyz]

If the line is cut somebody will lose power.

Now I want to to see how the reconnect the "live" wire!!

I will not be surprised if they cut the power.

Ralph

[Frank S]

Like Marv said about his father having to switch power at a substation to kill lines in certain areas while leaving others live. This would be by far the preferred method.
Since we have no way of knowing where the line terminated on the other end I will make a summation that the main line probably fed a metropolitan area and the branch line they cut possibly went to a substation which for all we know may have been in the path or at risk of being overtaken by a wild fire or possibly sustained damage due to a storm. We can only hazard a guess, but it is clear to me that there must have been a load on it somewhere down stream they were unable to clear otherwise there would have been very little to no arc when the line was cut

[Jon]

Mylar ballon + power line = internet sensation. This is available as a GIF too, but then you don't get the awesome sound. 21-second video:

[Jon]

17-second video. You can hear the branch screaming as its steaming:

[Jon]

Downed power line on swingset.

[Ralphxyz]

Good thing no one is leaning on the fence.

[VinnieL]

I personally think the fireman is standing a bit to oclose to the fence. Those rubber boots do have a voltage breakdown point I am sure. That is a primary line of several thousands of volts. If it was a secondary line it would have popped a fuse on the transformer.

[ibdennyak]

wouldn't want to pay the electric bill for that one