Edison pole replacement project helps ‘harden the grid’
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - An example of Southern California Edison (SCE) wildfire mitigation work was on full display Monday in one area of Santa Barbara.
Edison crews spent the day switching out old, wooden power poles in one section of San Roque, across from Peabody Elementary, and replacing them with fiberglass poles.
The wires were also upgraded.
Information from SCE revealed the new materials make both the poles and the wires more fire and wind-resistant.
Monday's replacement project was hard to miss; huge cranes and a crew from Streetcal Enterprises in Ventura were brought in for the job. Streets were blocked off and the towering cranes could be seen from blocks away. If you got close enough, you could see a full power pole dangling at the end of one of the cables.
(Beth Farnsworth/KEYT)
"The cranes are just brought out because of the poles, they are in the backyard of some of the homes," said Vincente Gonzalez, a traffic tech with Street Cal Enterprises. "Normal trucks that we have here wouldn't be able to reach them so, Edison had to hire out cranes and elevate them from the backyard."
Edison media reps said crews have been doing loads of fire mitigation work throughout the South Coast. They are heavily focused now on "reliability work."
We hope to give you more examples of that in the coming days.
