Repairing the Electric Lines

You may remember my photograph of the road along my bike route, blocked by the fallen tree last Saturday.  What I had not noticed was that when the tree came down, it also broke the power pole and took it down as well.  So about three days ago, on my ride, I turned into the street and it was clear!  The tree was gone and the power lines had been repaired and attached to a new pole.  Here's the funny thing - The main electric wire that was down was a 4,000 volt line that is on an insulator on the very top of the power pole, and a ground wire that is about 3 feet below it.  So the electric repair crew has put the power lines back on top of the pole.  However, also on the pole are the telephone lines, and any fiber optic lines or coax lines used for internet.  So the electric crew took care of THEIR lines, but what they did was cut the fallen pole in pieces, and then took the portion of the old pole, and tied it to the new pole, AT GROUND LEVEL!  So it will be up to a telephone repair crew to come and lift all these lines back up to the correct hight on the new pole - these telephone lines are usually 10 feet below the high-voltage line.  I mean that is only fair, but still it is funny to see these telephone lines down so low.

Here is the machine that pulled the tree stump out of the ground and has it in it's "jaws."

This is a more detailed photo of the remains of the old pole with its lines attached.

And this is my "Wait!  What?" photo.  These are the telephone lines and probably a FIOS internet cable underneath.  but look at how low it is right above the driveway of this house!  Maybe it is going uphill just enough to get a car under it on the right hand side, out of the picture.  I don't think the electric repair crew did this family any favors leaving these wires down so low!