|
|
|
tree fall on Dug Hill Road
Tuesday, December 30 2008
The wind had been howling all night long, with occasional powerful gusts that made me wonder about the viability of all trees and manmade structures in the area. More personally, I was concerned about the huge panes of glass leaning at sixty degree angles on the front of my greenhouse. They were well-secured at the bottom, but at the top they were clipped down by simple brackets made from pieces of a PVC gutter downspout. I peaked out the window of the bedroom at one point and all seemed well down there, which made me feel better. If they'd survived all those crazy winds last night, they were unlikely to get pealed off now. I went back to bed, but at some point I heard a weird crunching sound followed by the sort of beep our smoke detector makes when it no longer has AC power. I rolled over and looked at the clock, which was blank. We were having a power outage. Since I thought this might have something to do with that crunching sound, I went outside to see what I could see. It turned out that a large White Pine tree across the street had fall onto the power line, snapped it, and then continued downward. Now it lay across Dug Hill Road in such a way that it not only blocked traffic going north and south on that road, it blocked our driveway directly, barring access to the road entirely. There was already a Central Hudson Electric guy on the scene. I talked to him a few minutes later when he knocked on our door and asked if we had power. It turned out he was just the meter reader and had seen the tree fall; indeed, it would have fallen on him had he not decidded to pull over on the side of the road to make a phone call before entering the local cellphone dead zone.
It wasn't long before the Hurley Highway department were on the scene with their chainsaws. In a few minutes, they'd cut the tree into four and six foot segments and then used a snowplow to clear the road of branches and pinecones. As when plowing actual snow, they hadn't concerned themselves with clearing our driveway. But I didn't want to clear the driveway either, as the fallen electrical wire was tangled up in the detritus and (though it was probably turned off) I didn't want to go anywhere near it.
Later the Central Hudson guys showed up with a couple bucket trucks and I watched them from the laboratory as they repaired the line. They untangled the fallen wire and arranged it so that it was in a topologically-correct relationship with its fellow wires. Then they used some large shears to cut a piece off its end. Then they attached a new end to it, a piece that looked to be thick uninsulated copper wire. Finally the guy in the bucket truck used a piece of rope and a hand winch to tighten the wire onto the insulator from which it had broken. A few connections later, and he was done. The whole procedure had taken less than ten minutes. It seemed clear from this protocol that the wire At least on heavily-forested Dug Hill Road) is strung with set break points at each insulator, facilitating rapid restringing.
Once all the workmen were gone, I went out with my handtruck and brought back all the wood I could haul. The only thing I couldn't get onto my handtruck was a twelve foot long piece of trunk nearest the ragged stump where it had broken off.
I spent most of the day closing in the last of the holes in the greenhouse. I left one fairly large (12 inch by 12 inch) hole under the windows near the door. For the time being it is stuffed with a bag full of plastic and it serves as the place where the extension cord supplying power enters the building (and also where the wire for the outdoor sensor of my digital thermometer passes through the wall).
By this evening I was ready to insulate the flat section of the greenhouse's ceiling, which measures six by fourteen feet and is comprised of seven two foot bays between two by six joists.
Later I went to the greenhouse armed with a bottle of spray foam and an array of styrofoam scraps. My goal was to seal all the cracks not associated with windows or doors and to use styrofoam to insulate any surfaces that were within plywood-thickness of the outdoors.
I worked well into the late evening, and as I did so I sipped Christmas brandy and listened to podcasts broadcast from my computer to the tiny yardsale-purchased greenhouse radio.
Listening to podcasts (other than those from This American Life) is relatively new to me. I'd tried a number of podcast receiver applications, though none of them worked until I found Juice. After first finding a few good (and well-produced) science podcasts (All in the Mind, The BBC's Science Weekly, Radio Lab and, to a much lesser extent, Astronomy Cast) I branched out to WBEZ's Sound Opinion ("the world's only rock and roll talk show"). More recently, I looked to see if I could satisfy my computer nerd cravings by subscribing to a computer tech podcast. I've been listening to Technology With Mike. Mike has a mild Boston accent and, though good-natured and warm-hearted, is somewhat dopey. He's a mild Microsoft partisan, which is suspicious in and of itself. More suspicious is the fact that, though he takes calls on his live podcast (somewhat unusual among podcasters), the only people who ever call in are an even dopier 17 year old kid named "Cool Guy" and a gentleman from England named Dave. It's Dave who makes the show (which is otherwise a halting, low-budget affair). Dave is full of good suggestions and wisdom that often transcends the basic. Fortunately Mike allows Dave to pretty much take over whenever he calls in. I'm left wondering why Dave doesn't just do his own show, particularly since he has to stay up past 2:00 AM British time in order to be awake to call Mike when the podcast is being recorded.
The guy in the bucket pulls the broken wire back up to the insulator on the pole from which it broke.
A chocolate dinosaur that Gretchen gave me in one of my Christmas stockings this year.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?081230 feedback
previous | next |
