"Dan Hartung" wrote in message
...
Lost-In-Translation wrote:
Don't discount the power company either. We found, in our area, that we
were experiencing "meter jumping" which was power surges that made the
meters spin like a whirling dervish for a few seconds!! Sure, it made
for
some higher power bills too.

Come to find out, the power company will "surge" the lines as those
quick
surges will help burn off small branches that may be laying across
wires.
It's a dirty trick, but they do it.

Sounds like an urban legend to me. Power surges will stress the line
itself; at the right level it will heat up and stretch. A stretched
power line is more dangerous.

I really wish it were, but in South Florida, where FPL has a monopolistic
choke hold on millions of customers - it's exactly what they do and they
admitted it on a local news story as a "necessary maintenance proceedure"
and that the "average" customer would only experience "pennies" added to
their power bills to accomplish this. They just didn't say how many
"pennies" over time, 5? 10? 100? 1,000,000,000? Who knows.

I've actually seen branches laying across utility lines in my neighborhood
area, many lay they for a very long time then, for some reason, they start
to burn and break off.