A little over two weeks ago, I fractured my humerus in a cycling accident, and since that time I’ve been doing a lot of walking to try to minimize how much weight I put on while I’m stuck in a sling and unable to run, bike, or swim. So it happened on Tuesday after I got my sutures removed downtown that I decided to walk home (about 1.5 miles).
As I was nearing home, I heard a familiar sound: the sound of arcing 60Hz power. I looked around, and sure enough, I was standing underneath a PG&E power pole. It was arcing so loudly I could hear it over the traffic of the nearby 101 freeway.
Because arcing is a dangerous condition, I noted the address and pole number, and called it in to PG&E’s emergency line. They promised to send someone out to check on it. If indeed they did send anyone out, they did nothing. I went back over to the same pole yesterday, this time armed with my handheld Yagi and my HT, and confirmed both that the pole is still arcing, and that the arcing is definitely causing RFI.
I called it in to my PG&E “customer relations” specialist, who told me that the department responsible for investigating this kind of thing has been working on changing their processes so they don’t just ignore reports of arcing and RFI for months, but rather do something about them instead. We’ll see. I expect this pole to still be arcing two months from now, as is their usual custom.
It has now been 142 days since my initial reports of really bad RFI in my neighborhood to PG&E, and though they have fixed a few of the problematic poles, they still haven’t fixed them all. When you hear PG&E talking a big game about all the safety inspections they’re performing, know that it’s performative BS. If they really cared about powerline safety, they wouldn’t wait two months to investigate any report of RFI or power pole arcing.