Time to go to work

One of our best clients is the local power company. We have an "on call" contract for a variety of "land services" and I personally fuss over these folks like a mother hen. When they call, we jump.

Every storm season there is an influx of repair projects that come our way. Distribution lines or transmission lines that are repaired in-place usually don't require alignment staking, but sometimes we stake the R/W just to keep the erection crews from rutting up a good hay field.

Yesterday the phone was eerily quiet. I was probably right in assuming the facility engineering was up to their arses in alligators scrambling with the immediate trouble at hand in Moore with the tornado damage. Today the phone ringing began.

Among a jillion other things they've apparently lost a long line of a 380kV that comes right out of the old co-generation plant at the river. These structures require a concrete footing and alignment control for the bolt patterns.

I was using the scientific approach in my recon process (Google Earth) and came upon some interesting images:

Here's the general area showing where the old US62 truss bridge lost two of its spans in the tornado and the xmission run that is down (35d18'10"N, 97d35'36"W):

I noticed something down in the river bed that didn't belong:

And further investigation reveals a small bizjet on approach to the AP a few miles north:

cool things you find on Google Earth.