"terry" wrote in message
...
On Jun 14, 2:23 pm, dpb wrote:

I'd think any lineman who treats a downed power line as "dead" will end
up
that way himself.

It has indeed happened, not always from downed lines but supposedly
isolated lines. Our local REC had a lineman burned severely and very
lucky he wasn't killed by such an incident where the generator was put
onto the line _during_ the time they were working on a feeder that was
physically disconnected from the line source but a secondary transformer
was on the other side.
..
The 'downed' line was used more as figure of speech! And, while some
truth in that, hard working lines people working extra long hours
under storm or other conditions, dealing with broken off wires etc.;
maybe staff brought in from other assisting power companies, to
restore power, deserve better consideration.
Ever since the 1950s while I worked for a telecomm. company that
shared poles with power lines there have been some accidents and
FATALITIES.
Usually involving power company linemen!
Since the availaibility of emergency generators at prices affordable
to many home owners the risk of back feeding tfrom a house service by
an improperly connected generator through distribution transformer
back to primary 13 or 22 kilovolts has existed.
It behoves us to 'do it right'!
Every time this discussion comes up, it seems the discussion is only of
possible hazards to trained and well equipped linemen working on a
distribution system. Linemen are not the only persons who may accidently or
otherwise come in contact with a broken or otherwise downed power line. It
is possible for a service drop line to break loose during a storm and then
be backfed from the house it is still connected to. I would not want the
possibility of being responsible for any power being present on presumably
dead lines, whether on poles or on the ground.

Don Young