We’re going to get our Quebec 98 moment if we get a serious icing and wind event. Four high voltage corridors across the Cascades, and all passing through prime spots.
I’d love to hear if he says the failure was due to the design, environmental factors, or a combination. I grew up with these high tension lines behind my house in the Midwest, and even though the crackling sound could sound scary as a kid, I never thought about them falling down 😬
He says given the location of the buckling that there may have already been a problem with the structure… OR the lines started galloping and made it buckle. He says 75mph winds shouldn’t have been bad enough…
Also says the dead end up line there did its job and prevented further collapse.
He did say if they’d taken high enough winds into account it shouldn’t have failed, he also says that it’s unusual that the insulators didn’t fail first (those are usually a weak point). Also if the lines were galloping the torque could have done it in. 🤷🏻♀️
Anywhere this can be monitored publicly? I’ve been using my car charger’s api to pull voltage and frequency, but wishing for something better for Bonneville and BCHydro.
BPA publishes a weekly outage report updated every day on their website, covers all their lines and most other 230/240KV and up lines elsewhere that are tied into their system
That looks like some of the powerlines up in the Sooke hills we used to 4x4 near… crazy wind required to blow one of those things down! Unless there was some sort of tree involved that I’m not seeing in the picture heh
It's hard to put into perspective when trees come down of how bad the winds really were. It's the pnw, trees come down often due to so many factors. But these things, you never see these come down. Thank you for sharing!
Comments
Also says the dead end up line there did its job and prevented further collapse.
He did say if they’d taken high enough winds into account it shouldn’t have failed, he also says that it’s unusual that the insulators didn’t fail first (those are usually a weak point). Also if the lines were galloping the torque could have done it in. 🤷🏻♀️
Just having some fun spitballing.