Lightning flashes and the silhouette of the blinds makes a shadow on the wall of Alliant lineman Joe White’s room. He went to bed early because he knew he would be tending to the power lines and braving the storm later that night. He wakes up to thunder and the ring of his work phone. Many call him Joe; I know him as my dad.
Joe White went to college at Blackhawk Technical in Janesville, Wisconsin. After attending BTC, Joe started his four-year apprenticeship through Marshalltown Community College. This included working in Dubuque, Iowa for one year before continuing the apprenticeship in Dyersville for another two years. Joe then moved back home to Potosi to finish his apprenticeship in Dubuque for the last year. After working in Dubuque, Joe landed his current job as a lineman at Alliant Energy in Platteville, Wisconsin, where he has been working for 24 years.
In Platteville, Joe has taken many outages. There are a variety of reasons why your switches may not be lighting up your room. It could be as simple as a squirrel in the lines, or as time-consuming as a car versus pole accident. To receive power to your home, first natural resources are converted into energy. This could be produced by solar panels, windmills, or coal. This newly created energy is then distributed by American Transmission Company (ATC). From these large power lines, energy is dispersed to smaller power lines called distribution lines. These are the lines outside your house. There is a fuse on every line and a transformer for every house. Outages are detected by an Automated Meter Infrastructure (AMI) that is also found on every house. These meters send messages to dispatchers’ computers every 12 minutes to alert the company of outages. “Every outage is different…” Joe says, “It may take minutes, hours, or days to put back on.”
A trouble call starts when the dispatcher is alerted of the outage. Dispatchers can be notified through AMI meters or client call-ins. Hailey Whitewater is a distributional dispatcher for the Mineral Point district located in southwest Wisconsin. This district includes Mineral Point, Platteville, Prairie du Chiene, and Local Representative groups. Hailey started in law enforcement. Later, she got her Fire Certification and EMT License. At the seven-year mark, Hailey realized she wanted to reroute her career path. She applied for the call center in Alliant where she has worked in dispatch for six years.
“I am the Black Cloud,” Hailey tells me. She describes that this nickname comes from the unfortunate pattern of difficult trouble calls she has to give the linemen. This repetitive coincidence landed her this nickname amongst the Platteville crew.
After being alerted of the outage, dispatcher Hailey’s next step is to alert the crew. If the crew is already at work, Hailey reaches out to the foreman- the crew's planner and supervisor- to tell him what his linemen need to do. She includes the job and the location. Platteville’s foreman delivers the task to the linemen. If the team is not on scheduled working hours, the dispatcher will call an individual directly to alert them of the task at hand. This call also includes the job and the location.
After the task is received, linemen dress in their uniform: fire retardant jeans, neon and reflective yellow, steel-toe boots, and weather-ready gear. Extra garments are worn to protect the linemen as well. Long yellow rubber gloves and hard hats protect the linemen. The insulated bucket trucks are designed to protect the bucket user from the volts. Joe is a father and husband. Leaving his family during these storms is difficult. He hugs his family and pets his dog before loading up in the bucket truck and heading to his job site.
Every call is different, therefore, protocols for outages are unique every time. In general, the first task at a job site is making sure everything is safe. De-energizing power lines ensures the safety of the crew. Some calls can be executed while the power is on; this is called hot work. After ensuring safety, the next step is to assess the situation. If the situation is related to traffic, emergency services will be needed to direct cars.
Unique problems have specific solutions. Cross arms, an entire pole, a transformer, or wires may need to be replaced, depending on the situation. Replacing these items takes multiple linemen and can sometimes take hours or days. After these solutions are implemented, the lines are energized again giving the lines power. This protocol is an umbrella of tasks that are generally a part of each outage. Underlying difficulties that affect the site include weather, pedestrians, and temperature. When all the work is cleaned up and restored, the linemen can then go back to scheduled work, or home to their families.
When asked to describe her crews, Hailey said, “They are superheroes.” I have no choice but to agree after seeing my dad have to leave for trouble calls
Next time you flick your light switches, think of my dad and the men and women who provide your services. It is easy to take the hard work for granted. Electricity is a luxury we use so often that it feels like an average possession. It may feel like a right that people should be given. Light switches are much harder to flick than just turning on or off. Unseen work, sleepless nights, missed family events, and thankless situations are behind every flip of your switch. When you see your local linemen working after a bad storm, know it could be hour sixteen of an exhausting shift to ensure their customers can cook for their families that night. It is important to remember the work put into electricity, to be patient and understanding while the power is being put back on, and to thank your local linemen.