Live Wire Demonstration

As we get started on this, one of the first things we're going to do is talk about this unit, what we have, these are just regular Transformers, the cool things that look like trash cans, here they are. just normal transformers and what we're doing is we're feeding it back through a transformer back there and we're going to put 7200 volts into this conductor at the top so that the top conductor is what we would call primary. the lower conductor the lower conductor that's our neutral and that's our path to ground, so what we're going to do is we're going to demonstrate we're going to demonstrate something that Steve teaches our linemen never to do and we're going to create an arc. , so we're going to create an arc just so you guys can see it.

First of all, we're going to show you the voltage of two things, one of which you can see. what voltage we're dealing with and it's also a safety measure for us to make sure we have everything right, so you'll see, and this isn't exact because it doesn't actually go to ground, but it's about 72 7,200 volts on. This thing is real, it's actually 7,200 volts, it's not, you don't know, there's nothing, uh, arranged to make it look like it's really 7,200 volts and we'll show you here in just a minute that it really is 7,200 volts. because we're going to draw an arc and this is something we teach our linemen not to do, but a lot of our guys have never seen an arc because if everything goes well you don't see it, you don't see the arc, so it's going to be an electric arc. bright here, so you'll see the electric arc, that's the one you know we'll take it to the ground there and I'll tell you it's a very controlled arc because I don't know if you realized it or not, but Steve standing next to the off switch, this starts at zero amps, we are in the real world, on our real power lines, it would be a much larger arc. much more powerful, be louder, brighter and much less controlled, so one of the other things we hope to teach is why someone should do it if a power line goes down like after a storm, you know, most of us We could never imagine, you know, living in a world without electricity today there are so many conveniences associated with electric power, you know, you walk in, you flip a switch and the lights come on, you turn on the computer, you turn on the air conditioning, that kind of thing, but there are times when electricity can be dangerous, like after a car accident,

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s come down after a storm where a tree falls and takes down our power lines and if, as I mentioned, if it's not proven and grounded, never consider it dead or de-energized because the downed power line could be down here and someone could reach up and touch it and it will do what we're going to demonstrate here, you become the path to ground, which is what we're going to do. do and we are using. a hot dog, any one.

I guess you noticed that we have a hot dog on the end of our same driver that we just used and that hot dog we used to demonstrate what would happen if a human being reached out and touched it. because the hot dog is the closest thing we could find to prove it, gentlemen, as you can see, I mean, it really brings it out, but as you can see, I mean, it's the real deal and you would never want to. to become that path to ground, the thing about electricity is as long as everything is insulated and working as it should, you can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't hear it, unless it's tracking or something. and you'll see that again, we'll show you in a demo, but you never know it's de-energized until we go out and make it safe, so if you see a power outage, I've seen them on the ground, you know, on top of a car that kind of thing and they will still be energized and you know you would think like I say, the biggest mistake is that it would certainly be because it is on the ground that it is de-energized or because it is hanging under something, surely something is blown up. but if that thing is not grounded, it's not going to blow the fuse, there's no reason for it to blow because, like I said, if it's down here, it's still going to be energized now, our linemen, like I said, they go through a 56 Program of Monon training Our linemen go through a 56 month training program and you'll notice some of the things that they do, you'll notice that Ronnie is wearing special clothing and some special gloves and rubber sleeves like we're going through now and uh, Richard, you want show you how we test our rubber gloves and sleeves.

What we do is every day we test our rubber gloves and sleeves a couple of different ways, one way we test them visually and then we do an air inspection. Try our gloves, so Richard will show you how we do it. There is an air test. All he's doing is rolling them up so he catches the air and he's going to put air pressure on them. He will hold his ears and fingers up. in his ears and he is listening, he will hear a hissing sound, if there is even a small hole in those gloves, then we will turn them over and he will probably notice that our gloves are two different colors, the main reason is if there is a crack if there is a small crack and we do a visual check.

Richard will spread his fingers so what we do is check to see if there are any little cracks or anything like that in the rubber and that makes it easier for us to see especially when it's the other way around so if you're looking at the black side and that yellow will really shine if you have any kind of hairline crack there, so what can we do when we have a good rubber glove and our linemen? they're standing on the pole, that pole is at ground potential, we'll show you some other things here in a moment, that pole is actually a ground potential, especially depending on how wet it is, but our linemen often see them yes that's how it is. a pole is far from the street or somewhere we can get to with a truck, so we still climb, you know, you probably have probably seen some of our climbing poles Lin, they are actually standing on the ground potential and they are working . on energized conductors and they depend on their life depending on these rubber gloves being in good condition, so Steve is going to show you that we're just going to take a pen, make a hole in your finger and we're actually going to use this

demonstration

to A couple of things especially for our young trainees, you know, to show them why it's so important that they take action, do a good job trying on those rubber gloves and don't forget it and don't take it for granted, we use this to show them.

What could happen if they don't? If you don't properly check your rubber gloves. So what we have is the same ground

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that Ed with the hot dog put in a rubber glove and you saw Steve stick it. pinhole there and it may actually take a minute to get that thing to finish the arc, but we'll see how well we do if they go in there with that pinhole and get to work on a conductor. what could happen, so it's also a good

demonstration

for the people in the audience that when we go out and work on things again, our guys go through an intensive 56 Monon training program, be careful, it can be a little hot, um , come on. through an intensive 56-Monon training program to learn how to work with electricity, they have special tools, you can see, Ronnie, you know, we all wear gloves and rubber sleeves, we all wear clothes despite the things we have on.

It may not really look f but you know it's noax and this isn't actually a linan that had a bad day, we actually took a hit towards this one just to prove it to our students, hopefully they'll never see this in real life, but We use this to show our students why it's important that we wear our clothes from afar, you know, because as you know what the benefit of NX is, you know it's true, no, it doesn't add to the ignition of the fire, you know if you have it, especially if you have like nyline or something like that, you know you see this electric arc, it will attack you quickly and it will hurt you worse, you know, you will get hit. to your SK so this thing will quickly put out the Arc and not turn on or catch fire, so we actually borrowed this gu, we borrowed this hose from you guys this morning, we sprayed this thing with a little bit of water just to make it a good demo and you should see it.

You might have to look a little closer. This thing will actually conduct electricity. Can you hear it? See it. It's actually a good demonstration for our friends and for our friends in the fire department, but that's it. that fire hose, after being sprayed with some water, will conduct electricity. It depends and that also depends on how dirty it is and that kind of thing, how humid it is, okay this time of year, you know, we have a lot of owners, uh. out doing work and contractors out doing work and the other people that we want to get the message to are them particularly, you know our homeowners and painters, and those types of things what happens is people focus so much on the tasks that you are getting ready to do like painting the house or doing from the landscaping and cleaning the gutters those kinds of things that you forget to look up let's show you what's happening now what we have there of course is isolated with one of our rubber blankets that just keep it from going to the ground in our trailer, we have a grounding plate there and Ronnie is going to go to Ronnie is going to take that aluminum ladder and draw another arc from the primary there with that aluminum ladder. aluminum, now remember the Hot Dog, right, if you carried that ladder on your shoulder, you would be going to the ground, that path to the ground would be your body, like that hot dog, you know, in this case we have it on a good ground, but What happens in the real world is that your body becomes that way to the ground like a hot dog and we never want that to happen to anyone.

Well, guys, after a storm, we had a small blast that came through the area. It doesn't do much and sometimes you'll see tree branches in the line, but it doesn't touch anything else. Can anyone tell me why it's not really a big deal for us? If so, we need to know, but. um, he's sitting there, he's got power, he's not humming, he's not arcing, can anyone tell me why he doesn't have, doesn't he have a path to ground? That's exactly right now many of our if you look around, many of our primary drivers. idly and that same branch could be long enough to hang from one of our outside conductors, there is no real path to the ground and it is hanging low enough that a homeowner or someone else can reach up, grab it, to think I could grab it.

Clean it up and take it out well, they will become a path through the ground just like we showed there, so tree branches, especially when wet, will conduct electricity. How about like a mod or a balloon? You saw myar balloons hanging. our power lines, I'm sure you know everyone gets them for Valentine's Day and birthdays and that kind of thing on those days that are coming up and that's great, but sometimes those uh myar balloons can be a problem for us, We're just going to have a quick demonstration here to show that the myar balloon will conduct electricity.

You will see it a lot. It will sound and look a lot like a fire hose. Can you see the light coming on? There you have it. We have 7200 volts flowing through that myar balloon, it's not a great conductor, but it is a conductor, so if you have to see a m balloon, give us a call and we'll come out and get that thing down, do you guys pull meters? house meters, what we want you to do in that case is you call us, we will come out and take out the meter for you because within that meter base the only thing that isolates the meter pins from the ground potential in that meter base They're little plastic blocks, what we call plastic blocks, there are little insulators in there and if one of those plastic blocks breaks, that thing could go to ground.

Now we have this in a situation where there is a short circuit. I have a little fuse there and let's show you what could happen. This is just a demonstration of what could happen. I could make a Little Pot and a Little Smoke. What kind of protective boots do you wear now? leather, well we have an old safety boot, we got someone from a volunteer fire department to help us with a safety boot and I think one of the other myths is that these, uh, safety boot might have isolation. it has some insulating value, but like I say, our guys, you know, Ronnie has rubber gloves and sleeves that are tested every day.

We show you how we do a visual test. We do an air check. Our rubber gloves come down. our, to our Testing Center and rubber equipment, they are tested to make sure they are correct and, uh, a lot of things could happen to your boots and the way we have this boot set up here is like that. You have a lag like lag bolt at the bottom, but if you step on a nail or something or put a hole in your boot, that kind of thing can become a path to the ground as well. If you were to approach, say, a car door after a car accident with a driver and we're just going to show how electricity will flow throughthrough protective equipment.

Have any of you ever had to respond to maybe a crane or some type of equipment that we have this demo for? Anyone like someone with a tow truck, the same demonstration holds true for a car accident, if a vehicle is in an accident and one of our primary energized conductors climbs on top of the car, many times the misconception could be that the cable is on top. of a car is certainly going to blow a fuse or some kind of circuit breaker or something that can't be energized properly, so let's energize this car, you'll see the clock light come on again, okay, listen carefully.

Somebody hears something some arc smells something sees something we don't see any arc we don't smell anything we don't hear anything but we're going to show them that that car is energized with full primary voltage right now it may not be registering full but it's actually energized with primary voltage complete. Do you know there is paint in the car? That kind of thing, but the reason we demonstrate it is that you can't if you're in a car accident and there's a wire. down on top of that car you won't smell anything, you won't see anything, you won't necessarily hear anything, but it could be energized to full primary voltage and when you walk up and touch the door handle, you'll know to try to help. someone and the other thing is for any customer, someone you know, some of our customers or homeowners, those types of things that come up in a car accident, everyone wants to help that person in the car, you know that person in the car you may be hurt, knocked unconscious, that kind of thing, so we want to go help them, but the best way to help them is to call the power company, call us here at Dominion, let us come out and make it safe and that way we don't we will do it.

We have two people to try to rescue, so does this guy look familiar? Guys, we made this little doll. Now you have it. You can see that he has a copper ground connection. He has a copper lead, but that shows we saw him with the hot dog. how the human body will conduct electricity now that we have this grounded this is just a part to show okay we are going to energize this card again and this is what happens if you walk up and become a path towards the ground , so I mean it's a little small scale, but that's what really happens.

Whatever happens this time of year. Spring in the house. utilities before you start digging, some yes and some no, all good, the underground conductor thing and the difference between overhead and underground conductors that we saw, there are some hidden dangers with overhead conductors, you know, after a storm, they could fall and they could be energized, someone could reach out and touch them, but there are also dangers with underground and the biggest danger with underground, someone tell me what that is with underground utilities, right, someone digging, that's exactly right, thanks for that, but the other is the great one.

The thing about underground utilities is that once all the construction is completed and people move in and spend a couple of years, grass comes up and people you know and bushes and things like that, you can't tell where the utilities are. underground facilities, you cannot know where the energy is. The lines are, you can't tell where the water lines are, the sewer lines, you don't want them to cut them into a sewer line either, because that's another story, but, um, if you get in, if you're going to dig, we . I want you to call Miss Utility for bonus points.

Can anyone tell me what Miss Utility's number is? It's easy guys, you guys are great, 811, that's right, so you want to call Miss Utility to dial those underground utilities because, again, no one knows where they are. We do not know? We don't even know where the underground utilities are, as evidenced by the shovel we had. One of our boys. This is actually one of our guys. He went to stick his shovel into the ground and put it into this. the first time he stuck it in the ground, one of our new guys and as you can see he got a little arc, that's the real thing, so we're going to use the same shovel to demonstrate what could happen if you get in a line electrical and again this is the actual control, we have a kill switch here, so it could actually be, as you can see on our shovel, that one time someone got into it, they got into an underground utility.

You see, Ronnie has earplugs now, this time we changed the voltage. I don't know if you noticed, but I want to make sure you understand that we've changed the way this thing is fed. and now it is not primary voltage, it is secondary voltage. Come on Ronnie, can you put the meter there just for our benefit and theirs? We're just going to test and make sure we have it effectively. I changed the voltage from the primary voltage to the secondary voltage because we don't want to stick the shovel into this thing, so we're good, we're not getting any readings now, so we're ready to go there. we have secondary voltage, we have our fuse here and this fuse is going to make a loud sound like a shotgun, so I'll leave it up to you if you want to cover your ears, I recommend you cover yours. because it's pretty loud ready, yeah, you don't have to take off too, but it makes a loud bang like a little shotgun noise, a little bit of smoke, has anyone heard a loud sound like that, like a shotgun and then? the lights go out, so that's what a lot of things can make that happen, let's demonstrate something else, sometimes we have an attack with squirrels and snakes and raccoon tunes and those kinds of things get up, climb our poles and and even in our snakes sometimes they get into our underground transformers or switches and that kind of thing causes us some problems, we'll show you a demonstration here in a minute of what it is and that inside that gray barrel is a fuse.

There you see the gray barrel that Steve is holding and they are getting ready to set up. Now there is a fuse inside. There is a small driver. We can show you that in a minute, but that's it. There is a small one. they fuse together there and that's our weak link and when something falls to the ground like we just did with a shovel, it's going to blow the fuse now. I want to tell you that no real snakes are harmed in our demonstration, no real snakes are harmed. in our demo, that's a rubber snake, so we have a copper conductor in there just to demonstrate what happens and this actually happens.

We had, not long ago, in the last month, about 2,000 customers walk out just from a snake rising at a substation, so I mean, this is a real demonstration of what can happen and, when we get in, come on, if you want to cover your teeth. ears again, we will make the same loud noise. the fuse is going to blow right there, here we go, so just that old one, just that old snake climbing up the pole, going there and going from the ground potential to our, especially, our high voltage sockets of our Transformers, bang. There you are.

Wow, the squirrels climb on top of the Transformer, they sit on top of the can of that Transformer, most of the ground potential of the Transformer goes up there and gets on the wire that also causes this problem. because you know the shot sounds like a shotgun the lights go out that kind of thing is fine this time of year you know it's just the beginning of hurricane season we have a lot of storms coming you know you guys just had some storms It doesn't make a lot and a lot of lights go out, one of our hidden dangers for all of us, for our guys, one of the things that makes me most nervous and you and the homeowners that the public is looking for.

During a storm, a lot of customers go to different places and get generators, and if they don't hook up the generator correctly, what we recommend is that if you haven't had an electrician that you know, hook it up correctly with a disconnect and that. something like that, it's fine to take a generator and plug an appliance directly into it, but unfortunately what can happen is homeowners can come in and if they plug it into an outlet and don't put the meter on the meter base, that thing will back feed such like we're doing here in our demo, so if there's a down conductor after a storm, someone takes a generator doesn't hook it up correctly, plugs it in, it feeds back exactly, this whole demo is done through feedback now. a generator and we're going to show you someone turns on a generator, we have it plugged in, it feeds back in the opposite direction and we're going to feed back and show you how that generator is activated. and it will give us full primary voltage on our line from that generator only, what is your reading?

Ronnie, yeah, almost 8,000 volts on our meter there, so quick, you know, and that's the cool thing about our demonstration here, as we just showed the wire could be down, you know, you could, you could think it's de-energized if We haven't gone out and grounded it now, if we ground it, it won't come back to us, it will ruin your generator, but what will happen is you could be out there and this thing you could be driving it you could be in the middle of maybe winding it up. Sometimes we have customers who get on our drivers after a storm, get her out of the way if another one of her neighbors turns on a generator so quickly that it could switch from B and D energized to full primary voltage that quickly turned on a generator is full primary voltage, so never allow anyone when you go out to a scene, please don't do it. yourself don't let any of your partners do anything to get on that driver and don't do it and don't do it and keep the homeowners and the public away from that kind of thing because that's how quickly it can go from being de-energized even though we haven't grounded it to someone to turn on a generator and that's what you have gentlemen, that's our demonstration.