CenterPoint Energy lineworkers are preparing to install a new cross arm atop a new utility pole on Evansville’s east side.
It’s a sunny spring day to work outside, but it’s not always like this for the people that install and repair power lines and related equipment for homes and businesses, said lineworker Chase Saxe.
“Lately, we've had these wind storms and thunderstorms that's taken a toll on our system,” he said. “That means we were working long hours into the night, putting up poles, putting up wire trying to get the lights back on, as soon as we can in a timely manner for our customers.”
CenterPoint Energy Sr. Communications Specialist Erin Merris said the big storm in early March required an additional 32 contracted crews, “And so we had over 200 linemen on the job working. And then we add additional vegetation crews.”
Lineworkers, also called “linesmen” have the main job of maintaining or restoring power.
They bring electricity to new businesses and homes, maintain current equipment and work to restore power after an outage — all of this in any weather condition.
CenterPoint Energy has about 60 “internal” lineworkers and 100 contracted lineworkers.
Electric Operations Supervisor Ben Jenkins appreciates the recognition of lineworkers who often work on energized power lines.
“They work in rain, snow, sleet, hot weather conditions,” he said. “These guys, you know, they live in that community too. And sometimes they leave their families without power to go out and serve the community and take care of them first.”
That also includes a lot of tree work, said Saxe.
Jenkins said training for lineworkers takes four years and includes an apprenticeship.
“They'll start at the bottom and work their way up to a lineman,” he said. “It is a four year program. They have a combination of on the job training, and they also have classroom training involved as well.”
Merris said in the case of widespread outages due to storms, they have to triage outage areas. The first step is restoring power to “critical customers,” then restore outages of the largest area with the most customers.
“There's a lot of factors that go into whether we can restore your power in 10 minutes, or it might take two days,” she said. “So we just ask that people be patient because this work is dangerous.”