Our power went out about 4 p.m. yesterday due the branch pictured above. Within 15 minutes I had talked to a service rep at Ameren. I made it a point to inform the rep that there was a tree branch on the line and that the line came loose at the pole not mast at the house. They told me not to remove the branch or to pull the wire loose. Listening to that was my mistake.
Of course there were outages all around our town and unfortunately this was a case of a single household being affected. That being said, a person from Ameren showed up about 6:30 p.m. in a pickup, to assess the repair. I talked to that person and also asked about moving the branch or the wire and again was told not to. (At that point there was no possibility of the line being energized.)
That person sat in their truck in the road until a bucket truck showed up around 11 p.m. (Nice, 4 1/2 hours OT sitting in a truck with a laptop and smartphone to pass the time.) I went out after the bucket truck got there and was told that they would have to have a "tree crew" to deal with the branch on the wire. Seriously?
We managed to get a few hours of sleep before being awakened around 7 a.m. by our dog Tara. She heard someone outside, so I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and went out. This illustrious "tree crew" was just one guy and all he did was grab the cable and pull it out from under the tree branch. Pretty sure I could have done that if I hadn't listened to the power company workers. My only fear was causing more damage to the line at the mast pole.
Finally, about 9:45 this morning a bucket truck came back and they finished the job in about 20 minutes. So we went an extra 9 hours or so because of their stupid rules about job separations. I know that is what it was because I have to deal with it at work and our union.
This was the tree that lost the branch, but taken before the limb fell.
I think that whole tree is coming down later this spring.
