I've noticed that many wooden electric poles here have recently been
updated with a steel channel, double u shaped, about ten inches wide,
extending from some level in the ground up the side of the pole to
about 5 ft high. It's stamped out of one piece, but if you imagine
two pieces of steel channel about 5" wide laid side by side, vertically along the
pole, it's like that. They are held in place by two heavy metal bands
that go around the pole. The top has a sheet metal cover over it, nailed
in place. They had crews here last summer digging around the poles.
I also noticed that the poles have new steel screw plugs, about 3/4",
maybe two feet above ground level. There is no wire or anything running
into or out of it. I can't figure out what this is
all about, but I'm wondering did they do test boring to find out which
poles have termites or something? And the mysterious channels could be
a delivery vehicle for insecticide, where they put stuff in the channel
at the top and it dispenses? Whatever it is, maybe one pole out of
six or so has it added. I thought it might be to add some kind of
crash protection, but then some are on the side facing the direction
of traffic, others are on the opposite side and it doesn't seem likely
that it would really do anything for that. Anyone see similar or
have ideas?