On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 10:38:30 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 05:34:26 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

Or maybe they should have just checked clearances on the parade
route and not made it so tall......


http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13...s-injured.html

I wonder what the path to ground was? If the float was on typical
tires, there would have to be some path to ground.....

I imagine the path to ground was the people standing on the ground. If
this was a medium voltage conductor they grabbed, it would blow
through those flip flops the Haitians wear. Trying to get off the
float might be worse than staying on it but you certainly would not
want help from someone on the ground.

I looked at the video again and right after the arcing to the guy
at the top, in the lower right corner, there is a cloud of smoke
near ground level. That looks like where the path was completed, but
you can't see enough to know through what.
I can't tell what the thing was actually on,
probably a truck? They are saying now that 20+ are dead. If
true, I'd bet most of them were from the resulting stampede, not
the electric itself. From what I can see, the few people closeby the
guy seem to have been affected, but the rest of the people on the
float seem to be OK.