John said:
---
What short circuit? "Grounded" doesn't mean that it's laying on the
ground, you stupid shit, grounded means that it's electrically
connected to a zero volt reference. Drive a ground rod six feet or
so into damp earth and that might be a good "ground", but a high
voltage line which has fallen onto asphalt or even concrete or dry
earth isn't really grounded very well if it's not passing much
current.
---
Exactly right - and even worse than you indicate.
Apparently the bolt cutter/long pole/garden rake
one foot hopping crowd has never seen what they are
speculating about. The damn wires dance! Jump around
all over the place. We had one go down in the snow,
and it stayed live for many hours. Burned one impressive
hole in the dirt - about 3' in diameter (roughly
circular shaped) and 4 to 6 inches down. And it burned
several smaller holes where it jumped. There was over a
foot of snow on the ground, so it wasn't dry at all.
Where the wire was, it melted the snow, and somehow
burned into the soil. There were flames coming out of
the hole. The cops closed the street and we waited a long
time for Con Ed to 1) shut off the power and 2) an even
longer time to fix it. It was a big ice storm and there
were outages all over the place.
I still don't understand how dirt burns. All the grass
was long gone, yet flames would still come out periodically.
Simply amazing.
Ed