I would like to talk to you about a man named Cecil. Cecil is in his 30’s. He is a very talented lineman
who currently works for a Contracting company. He got started in the trade in 2002. Initially he worked
for a small utility, but really like the idea of travelling and working for a Contract line construction
company. He advanced quickly working for the contractor and became a general foreman. A “GF” runs
several crews at a time. He has a strong value of safety, and considers it in everything he does. Cecil is
the interface with the host company, as well as other neighboring utilities in the area of the job. He acts
as a working project manager, schedules outages and hold orders, and ensures the project is on
schedule. He is truly a jack of all trades in line construction.
Cecil had a busy summer in 2014. The re-conductoring two 115 thousand volt lines running from an
urban area to the Oregon coast. This was an important job, working for a big host company. Cecil had
scheduled multiple outages during this time including the 13-32 crossing that belonged to a customer
utility. This structure is where cover would be applied. For two weeks linemen from Cecil’s crew picked
up hold orders on the 13KV feeder shown in the picture and installed cover on the line. Everything went
smoothly.
In November Cecil found himself back on the same jobsite finishing up some work. His crews needed to
install bird diverters (scarecrows) in the same area where the 13-32 crossing was. This day was a little
different; Cecil got a call from Portland General before the outage occurred. The customer utility was
confused by the outage request submitted by the host company. They said that pole 13-32 had a 57KV
main feeder on top in addition to the 13KV he requested. Cecil immediately knew something was wrong.
His heart sunk. He knew then that his crews did not have protection from the 57KV during the August
work for 13 days in a row. As he drove back to the job trailer to find a computer he was thinking of his
crew, he pictured a giant arc flash engulfing his linemen, and what it would be like telling their families
that they were in the hospital. When Cecil got back to the job trailer he submitted a Contractor Near
Miss report as required by the host company.
Cecil waited several weeks with no response from the company. “Why is it that when we (the
contractor) screw up, we immediately get a call, but when the host company screws up there is no
response. “Cecil then talked to his superintendent, and asked for some answers. Cecil’s company used
the process for RFI (request for information). This was done through a third party QA rep. The QA rep
had attempted to schedule a meeting before the thanksgiving holiday with no response, and then a
meeting in December which was cancelled due to lack of participants. It was after the cancelled meeting
that he called his contact John at the host company. He had worked with John for the last three years,
and felt he could talk openly with him. Cecil was extremely frustrated he had received no response to
the near miss report. John assured Cecil he would look into it, and get back to him ASAP.
When John spoke with his safety department, they didn’t understand what happened. They got the
report, but didn’t know what to do with it. Typically they only investigate if a major rule violation
occurred, and in this they didn’t understand what happened. John didn’t work for safety at the time, but
offered to try out an HP investigation as he was formerly the program manager for the contractor
clearance and hold order program. Safety agreed to the investigation.