Cutting a high-voltage power line - video

[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.