POQUOSON, Va. — With 37 years at Dominion Energy, Johnny Walker knows a thing or two about the dangers of the job.
"This is... kind of serious here. When you're out in this type of weather... you want everybody to go home to their family," said Walker.
The Construction Operations Supervisor tells me he's extra careful during the cold winter months. He remembers one particular ice storm that caused a big mess.
"The snow and ice is so heavy when we get it, it lands on the trees and the limbs and all these limbs were just weighing down," he said. "So what happened with all the weight, the trees start snapping, their limbs start popping. So as we were trying to put up lines and get them back up, we got them up, got lights on and before you know it, another tree fell and snapped and fell across the line and broke it."
Weather
Ways to save money in the winter while still keeping your home warm
You've probably noticed a lot more lines are being put underground. Walker says that when there's an overhead problem, you can look up and see it right away. When the lines are underground, it's not as easy.
"First of all... the ground is cold, it's hard. So now, we are digging in the mud, and mud is heavy, just trying to scoop it up," said Walker.
I walked around with Dominion underground lineman Ethan Seller. He showed me what they were working on.
"So we were tasked with digging this sand. Cutting out the old cable here, what it looks like. So, this transformer is energized, so you have your cable coming in, and then that's the primary side of the transformer. And then you have your cable going out, which feeds the rest of the transformers in line," explained Seller.
Seller showed me how they keep lines safe from the elements.
"...that's what that tape is right there. Because when we have to strip everything back to terminate this cable the way it has to be done, we have to waterproof it. So, water can't get down in the cable and cause something to go bad," said Seller.
According to Dominion Energy, burying these lines - which provide electricity to neighborhoods and homes - reduces the number of repairs needed for service restoration after a big storm.
However, where we live, flooding can be a challenge. Seller tells me that they have a way to work around it.
"A lot of the times in those areas, they'll put the transformers up on those raised concrete pads, or we have some that are like synthetic fiberglass material," said Seller.
Still, Dominion is undergrounding as many lines as it can - almost 2,000 miles across the service area so far. The goal is to bury a total of 4,000 miles of the most outage-prone overhead lines over the next several years.
"We're always looking for something better, to improve, to make things safer for us and our customers," said Walker.
Weather
