On outages and clear Oklahoma skies

Another blizzard has hit the Northeast. Atlanta is frozen solid. There’s snow in 49 of the 50 states, according to CNN, even here in Tulsa. But, today, we have a clear, bright blue Oklahoma sky reflected in that remaining white.

There’s a lot of real estate in the sky in Oklahoma. The blue horizon seems to go up and out forever, an endless ceiling with no glass barrier in sight. On days like today, it’s almost impossible to believe that the bright blue ends somewhere, that eventually the dark of space will interfere and stop that tinted ascent.

We don’t put a lot of skyscrapers into the real estate of an Oklahoma sky, but we do put quite a bit of one thing---electricity. Towers and poles dominate the landscape here. They trace along highways and roads, turn left or right to follow the bits of civilization and urban sprawl. They go up and out the way Manhattan builds office buildings.

It makes for cheaper energy. It makes for quicker hook-ups if you decide to build out in the middle of an Oklahoma nowhere to enjoy that deep blue overhead real estate.

But, sometimes, it can be problematic.

Sometimes the real estate above our heads in Oklahoma isn’t that bright blue we’re used to. Sometimes it’s black or gray or even green. Green’s the worst. That means tornado. But black can also bring strong winds, sometimes hurricane force. And gray can mean a whole lot of ice---all items that can destroy the biggest builds of our Oklahoma sky, that power structure.

When the worst ice storm in state history hit here in 2007, the parts of Tulsa with lots of power real estate in the sky were crippled. Poles were down everywhere. Transformers exploded. It was chaos---except in those newer spots with underground equipment. They had a few spotty power outages but, all in all, maintained a good front.

After that storm, I thought, “Perhaps we should stop building our power structures into the bright blue of the Oklahoma sky.”

However, there is a problem with moving all these bits and pieces underground: cost. It’s expensive. And, locally, for a utility caught in a recession and already hurting from a series of bad winters (including that historic ice storm), it’s not something easily done.

I know our utility is anxious to return to upkeep and undergrounding, but I also realize their dilemma with cost and cutbacks. And, while the average customer might love the reliability and safety from ice and wind that underground power provides, they are not willing to pay out of pocket for it. Again, this is as equally understandable as the utility’s bottom line concerns. So, no fair pointing fingers at each other with this argument.

For the moment, the real estate in that Oklahoma sky remains the most practical power option. I’ll just keep an eye out for the blue to change to black or gray and hope that our infrastructure in the air can be spared---at least until the utility can spring for undergrounding things again (or customers are willing to pay for it). Until then, power will remain in the air, and there’s just not much we can do about it from our spot on terra firma below.

Lineman's Rodeo hits KC

I made a joke to my coworkers that, this weekend, I'm traveling in the beaten track of Wilbert Harrison---going to Kansas City, here I come. Sadly, even with my slightly off-key singing, few people get that joke anymore.

This weekend, Kansas City is host to the International Lineman's Rodeo. Well, more specifically, the rodeo plops down in Overland Park, a suburb of KC.

This is the 27th annual lineman's rodeo, and the 2010 version is packed with an exhibit floor and the rodeo events themselves, which happen on Saturday in Bonner Springs, Kansas, another suburb of KC. Everything's in the 'burbs these days.

Kansas City Power and Light along with Westar Energy are the host utilities for this well-attended event attracting the best of the best in lineman from across the country and around the world. The rodeo on Saturday pits utility teams against one another in a number of traditional lineman tasks from pole climbing to hurt man rescue. There are also a number of surprise "mystery events," where the teams don't know what they will be tested on until they get on site. (Last year, one of the mystery events was replacing a lightening arrestor. Southern California Edison won that event.)

The first Lineman's Rodeo was held in September 1984 with twelve participating teams from Kansas and Missouri. This year, there are teams from Canada, Hawaii and even Brazil, according to the show's registration people (whom I chatted with a bit earlier today). While the exposition that comes into play today and tomorrow before the rodeo is quite a draw (especially for free t-shirts), it's clear that the real excitement is yet to come---at the Saturday rodeo. When even your registration staff is excited, you know you have something special in hand.

The expo at the Overland Park Convention Center over the next two days features a number of exhibitors from Aircraft Dynamics to Buckingham Manufacturing Co., from Duratel to our own sister publication Utility Products. (Utility Products is currently neck-and-neck in the running for the best giveaway t-shirt, right up there with Bulwark, which has a line that extends out from its booth and down the aisle. T-shirts really are the thing here at the Lineman's Rodeo.)

Those handy folks at registration told me that, on average, the exhibit floor will take in around 2500 people today and tomorrow before the Saturday rodeo. Additionally, for this year, there are over 150 teams registered for the rodeo itself and around 200 apprentices. (It's a bit down from years past due to the economy, but the Lineman's Rodeo is still a very strong event indeed. That expo floor was packed when I left a few minutes ago, and Utility Products was darn close to running out of t-shirts, as were most exhibitors.)

Are you here at the Lineman's Rodeo? If so, leave me a comment or two about what you're seeing and hearing at the event. Reading this after the event? Tell me your favorite winners and moments at the rodeo.