Lineworker a hazardous, but rewarding job

Sep 6 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Lindell Kay The Daily News, Jacksonville, N.C.

Modern day magicians and miracle workers rolled in one, electric utility workers risk their lives in one of the most hazardous jobs in the nation by handling powerlines coursing with enough energy to turn sand into glass just so the lights come on when we flip a switch.

More of a calling than a career, linework requires a combination of physical strength and mental acuity not seen in almost any other occupation. Apparently cut from the same cloth, all the lineworkers The Daily News interviewed last week had sharp minds, calloused hands and an easy-going nature.

They all had the same reasons for picking their profession. They said they were fascinated with electricity at an early age, loved outdoor work and had admired someone they knew who worked with power lines.

Glenn Warpole, 50, has been stringing and repairing power lines for half his life, first with Carolina Power and Light and then Progress Energy.

"I've always been intrigued by electricity," he said, adding he was a maintenance worker with the City of Jacksonville and studying electrician courses when he decided to apply as a lineworker.

Kenny Barber, 42, has been working at Jones-Onslow Electric Membership Cooperative for 23 years. He said it is all he ever wanted to do.

As a crew chief, Barber has been to Kentucky and Alabama helping to restore electricity to those who lost power during tornadoes and hurricanes. He said Hurricane Bertha was the worst storm he remembers.

"It seems like everything that was green and 80 feet tall was laying on the ground after Bertha," he said of the 1996 cyclone that knocked over countless trees and destroyed 200 structures in Onslow County.

Warpole said his most memorable hurricanes were Rita, which devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, and Wilma, a Category 5 storm that slammed into Miami the same year. Warpole joined crews from all over the country in helping to restore power to areas affected by those storms.

He said he could add Irene to his list of destructive mistresses.

"It was a big storm," he said of the 400-mile wide cyclone that dumped wind and rain all along the Eastern seaboard.

Since Irene was so big there were lines going out in one place that caused power outages in other places.

"We had some damage to high-voltage towers that meant loss of power to places where there might not have been a lot of damage," Warpole said.

Forget hurricanes, ice storms are the worst for lineworkers, said 61-year-old David Long, a veteran lineworker with Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative who has been climbing poles and repairing power lines for 42 years.

He said winter storms present the most problems to lineworkers because ice and snow are still on the ground when the work needs to be done.

Long also had insight into why Irene brought down so many trees. He said the summer drought dried up roots weakening the hold in the ground many trees had. So trees that have stood for a 100 years and withstood stronger storms toppled to Irene's unrelenting wind.

Once the storms have passed, power restoration is a process that involves a lot more than flipping a circuit breaker. Lineworkers have to set up DOT-approved work zones, establish barricades and make sure the public doesn't wander into their work area.

"You don't want to be up on a boom and a little kid ride under you on his bike," Warpole said.

Lineworkers have to aware of their surroundings and pay attention to every detail of their job. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics repeatedly ranks lineworker in the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the nation. In 2008, 30 out of every 100,000 lineworkers died on the job, an employment mortality rate higher than police officer and firefighter.

"Anything can happen," Barber said. "That's why we are extra careful."

Warpole said he doesn't consider the job dangerous. He thinks of it as hazardous because conditions can be controlled.

"We all operate in a safety-first culture," he said.

Warpole is often invited to area schools where he tells students to never approach a downed power line. He said parents really need to stress to their children not to touch a downed line.

"Kids can be curious like the way some people read a 'wet paint' sign and have to touch for themselves to see," he said, adding that touching a live but downed power line could have deadly results.

All the local companies check when they receive word of a potential downed power line.

"A lot of times it turns out to be a cable line, but we always check because they are so potentially deadly," Warpole said.

With 230,000 volts charging through highlines there is enough electricity to turn sand into glass, Warpole said.

On a job that is so hazardous, constant training is the name of the game.

Progress puts their lineworkers through six weeks of bootcamp-like training at a facility in Newhill, a small town south of Raleigh. Those six weeks involve a very physical two weeks of nothing but pole-climbing training.

Jones-Onslow and Carteret-Craven require a long apprenticeship before a lineworker is allowed to operate on his own. Working under a seasoned veteran crew chief, lineworkers make their way up from groundman through three classes of linemen.

All the training is about worker safety and getting the lights turned back on. Lineworkers know that there are elderly people, young mothers and entire neighborhoods depending on them to get the job done. And those people are not strangers.

Barber said he and his crew live in the Jacksonville area.

"We go to church with members and our kids play ball together," he said, adding that it is their mission to restore power as quickly and safely as possible to their community.

While being a lineworker can be rewarding, the job is definitely challenging.

The hours are long and the work is hard as captured in Glen Campbell's 1968 popular song "Wichita Lineman" which includes the line "I know I need a small vacation but it don't look like rain."

Warpole said the job was "demanding physically and mentally" and has long hours even under normal conditions.

Barber added that when a storm knocks out power then lineworkers don't call it a day until electricity is restored.

Long gave some pretty stiff advice for anyone looking to begin a career as a lineworker: "They got to like hard work and tolerate being outside in all kids of weather or find something else to do."

Contact Daily News Senior Reporter Lindell Kay at 910-219-8455 or lkay@freedomenc.com. Read his crime blog, "Off the Cuff," at http://onslowcrime.encblogs.com.