I got a notice from the Planned Outage Department of my local utility company informing me my power would be out a few hours in a week or so. The reason given is "pole replacement."
I am intrigued by the mysterious Planned Outage Department and wonder why it was necessary to create such an entity. Why couldn't all this happen under the aegis of, say, the utility's Maintenance Department? Are outages ever planned outside of some form of maintenance? What kind of bureaucratic shenanigan is this Planned Outage Department ?
Anyway, although the outage isn't for a few days, a crew is out there today erecting the new pole, itself. The pole they're replacing, though, is a structural pole, as far as I can tell. It carries no electrical cables, just a cable to hold a different pole up, and a guy wire to ground. I'm not sure why they have to cut the power to replace it, unless it's just in case the other pole, which is carrying electrical wires, falls over during the procedure.
It's easy to see why the old pole needs replacement in any event: a palm tree took root right next to it and has been threatening to push it over for years now. I imagine they're going to remove both the old pole and the tree. Palm trees are somewhat pestiferous: they put out masses of seeds and often take root in the strip of soil between sidewalk and street, eventually pushing the sidewalk "tiles" up at an angle and cracking them. They grow well by themselves requiring no care.
