Bob Engelhardt wrote:

On 11/13/2014 8:09 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:
... Beside the
fact that if the line is still intact to other's houses my genset will trip
out immediately on overload if I'm still connected to the line feed .

That's my take on it. And it's not only the 5 or 6 houses sharing the
pole pig with you, but the pole pig itself. You'd be trying to energize
the pole pig secondary, which would energize the primary and try to
energize all the pole pigs on that 1200v (?) line, etc. In other words,
the service line to your house would look like a dead short to your
generator. Also, with the internal impedance of the generator, its
output voltage would drop way down during the time it takes to trip its
breaker.

Not that I'm going to be complacent about opening my main breaker, but
the risk if I don't is minimal.

Bob

If you go to powerlineman.com I think it is, they have an archive of
accident reports. While a few can be attributed to equipment failure or
external forces, most are the result of errors on the part of the
lineman. I recall reading one particularly interesting case where a DWI
driver plowed a pad mount transformer off the pad. The lineman showed up
and looked over the scene of what was left of the pad before picking up
one of the HV "elbow" connectors and starting to clean it with a rag.
Needless to say he got something like a 13KV surprise. Clearly he didn't
follow *any* of the safety procedures such as testing with a meter on a
hot stick, disconnecting and grounding the other end, etc. The DWI
driver may have setup the opportunity for the lineman to fry himself,
but to claim the driver was somehow responsible for such egregious
failures to follow safety procedures is absurd.