Tag Archives: pole

Death of a Lamppost

Back to our old neighbourhood in Woodinville for today’s post. Our house was along a small branch off the road. There was a small curve on this branch, and it was known to cause confusion for delivery drivers when they tried backing up. There was a lamppost which was off the hard surface but aligned with the majority of the branch. Consequently, vehicles would back into it. Usually, they noticed quickly but the post had a lean to it for a while after some contacts.

Then, one of the delivery drivers had a go at it with a bit more vigour. The van backed into it hard, and the post was not able to take the punishment. The driver decided not to hang around – no way did they not know what they had done. The utility company had to come out promptly to remove the post and make everything safe. By the time we left, there still had not been a replacement, so things were a bit dim in the evenings.

Woodinville Lineman

If you take a garbage truck and attach it to a power pole that you aren’t supposed to attach it to, you are likely to cause some trouble.  We had a blackout as a result of such an event.  The pole ended up punching a hole in the roof of a nearby house (thankfully it wasn’t raining) and power to our area was cut off. I got home as the light was fading and got a few shots of the damage.  The power lines are strong and they had succeeded in taking down two lamp posts as well.

I popped back out to see how things were progressing and to watch the teams at work fixing the situation.  Making the initial pole safe took a lot of time as bits of it were removed.  A new pole was put in place and the old pole lifted back up and attached to the new one.  I assume this was a temporary fix.  Focus then shifted to the next pole which was leaning at an angle that suggested it had taken a bit of the load too.  This one just got straightened up and didn’t need to be replaced.  I gave up watching after a while since I preferred to be indoors in the warm.  Power came back on at 9pm so we were able to sort out the things that had been cut off before turning in for the night.