TVA storm videos

Jeff Horton

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The Heart of Dixie
Here are couple of videos from TVA relating the April 26 tornadoes relating to the power grid. My brother-in-law works for TVA and he said they lost towers that they never thought would be brought down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHHb9kp7WPU&feature=player_embedded

He was on one of the crews that you will see in this next one, building towers and running lines till a few months ago when he transferred to another job. But he has been drafted and is out in back out in the field working to put up temporary towers. Now I think now they are just replacing towers that went down.

They are still working all the hours they can. Basically they work till they can't work safely anymore. Pile up in a truck and sleep a little and then back to work. Got to admire these guys! They have done some amazing work to basically rebuild our power grid in a couple of weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0S9tN4_mOc&feature=relmfu
 
It is amazing how much more impact something like this has on a person when they see the reconstruction begin. Think of the reels of cable, the strings of KV insulator sections, the amassing of something as simple sounding as the angle iron sections (right size, right thickness, right chemical make up, etc.) the transportation, the logistics....

My dad was a telephone company man. As a child I can remember the flurry of activity that one of our Santa Anna wind storms would cause. They were like a flea bite on an elephant compared to this tragedy.

Jim
 
It is easy to forget after a couple of weeks about the people effected, be it a Hurricane, Tsunami or this. We will be recovering for months and a few people will be dealing with this a lot longer.

Our house got power after 4 days and things went back to normal for us. My in-laws just got a check for their Carport and removing the massive hickory. But their two cars were liability only and they have to buy at least one car. Both were totaled. And they are still better of than so many others.
 
Wow, that's an immense undertaking. Kind of scary to think how dependent we are on things like electricity and fuel. Lose either or both of those, and society is changed quickly.
 
Thanks for these, cool to see the work that goes on behind the scenes so to say...how many times a day we never give a second thought when we hit the power switch....kudos to those who light up our lives :thumb: just a pity it takes something so tragic to bring home the thought :eek:
 
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