There was some idiot here a few months back who decided to steal the
grounding wire from a large transformer serving a subdivision. While he
was cutting the wire off the transformer he got fried, but Darwin did
not get him -- he survived and was taken to the burn hospital most
likely to be cared for by the taxpayers. Did not hear whether he pulled
through or not. The transformer had to be replaced by a large and
expensive mobile unit, while the one affected was drained of oil (hazmat
rules in effect) and someone crawled into it to fix it. All that took
some weeks and cost a LOT of money.
Here in Charleston County you now have to go to the Sheriff to get a
permit to sell any kind of scrap metal, and they check that at all the
yards. Even before you had to show DL to get your $$. There is still a
lot of copper theft, someone broke into the yard of the local utility
some months back and made off with all kinds of wire, several $k worth.
Most of the distribution stuff seems to be aluminum these days, but even
that is worth quite a bit.
--R
On 6/5/12 3:06 PM, WILTON wrote:
Just found May 31 headline in local (for that area) newspaper, Rocky
Mount Telegram, "Two men charged with 282 counts of theft of Progress
Energy wires." Unable to read article, 'cause don't have a
subscription to the paper. 'Course, wires may not have been copper,
but they WERE part of power distribution system. Now I'm wondering
why anybody would go to all of that trouble to steal steel. More
desperate/stupid than I first thought?
Wilton
----- Original Message ----- From: "WILTON" <wilt...@nc.rr.com>
To: "Mercedes Discussion List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT - copper thieves
The TV cable/phone cable(s) -easily recognized - are strung
underneath the one that was taken.
BIL said that stolen cable was replaced with a galvanized steel cable
by the power co. (Progress Energy).
Wilton
----- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Streib"
<str...@cs.indiana.edu>
To: "Mercedes Discussion List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT - copper thieves
Often cable TV and telephone share roadside poles with power lines.
The power lines are on top, the cable/phone lower down on the pole.
Could have been a cable or phone line. Power lines are not copper.
Allan
On Tue, Jun 5, 2012, at 02:06 PM, WILTON wrote:
Last Sunday afternoon, I visited my sister and her husband in
rural, eastern NC; not a densely-populated area but not very
sparsely-populated, either - houses across road from each other and
many less than quarter mile apart, etc. Sitting on their porch
facing the main highway, BIL told me about watching a truck pull
over by the road in front of the house several days before; 2 men
got out carrying a long pole; one of the men reached way up
overhead with the pole under the power distribution line running
along beside the road and clipped the lower, single wire/cable near
one of the power poles, walked to the next pole and clipped same
wire near that pole; other man rolled up the length of wire and put
it on the truck; both men proceeded along the road/distribution
line for several minutes while sister and BIL watched. Power at the
house flickered briefly when they made the first cut, but then
continued in a, seemingly, normal manner. Sister and BIL thought
they were powe
r!
co. employees removing old wire in prep for installing new, but
both thought it strange that they would just clip between poles and
leave. Well, coupla days later, they read in paper about capture of
the thieves.
Few days later, real power co. employees came along replacing the
stolen cable; during the process, one of the linemen was
electrocuted/killed while lowering his lift bucket.
Question: What is the function of the lower, single cable that the
thieves were taking? Is it a grounding conductor to enhance safety
of the distribution system? I've noticed that grounding conductors
running down sides of many of the power distribution poles for
several blocks near my house have been cut and taken from down at
the ground and up as high as a man can comfortably reach. When I
first saw such several years ago and called power co. to report it,
they'd come out and replace the missing conductor immediately;
'called to report same several weeks ago; no response from power
co. yet.
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To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
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For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
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To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
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