At 3:00 this afternoon, I was taking the curve on a road near my apartment when I noticed movement in the upper left corner of my windshield. It was an approximately 12-ft section of the wooden pole at the side of the road breaking off and toppling onto the road in front of me. I stopped in time and did not hit it, but the pole just behind me decided to break off about 6-ft from the top and land behind me. One of the metal guide cables landed on the car and cracked my windshield really well. If I had stopped 6 feet shorter, I would have been nailed by a 6-ft section of telephone pole. What a lovely day.

WMA



I found out later that a third pole farther up the line had broken off near ground level.

Bad storm?

Quoted: Bad storm?

Where WMA lives?  I'd bet on bad TXU or Bad Verizon.

 I once saw an accident caused by something similar.  In that case, the guide cable got wound up in the front passenger wheel.  It ended up flipping the little Buick over.  The 16 y/o girl inside wasn't hurt though...and was trying to figure out what to tell her mother.


mm

Thunderstorms had blown into the area with intermittent hard rain and I believe gusting wind. I think this may have been what broke the one pole at the base and probably caused a chain reaction. The pole broken at the base had a transformer on it.

I wasn't to scared until I realised how close the last pole fell behind my car. The adrenalin reaction did not really kick in until after I backed around the last pole and could turn around and leave. I seem to have strange reactions like that. Delayed reaction due to slow metabolism, or really bad survival instincts?

glad your ok

I hope you had an extra pair of clean undies in the glovebox.

TRG

I just got back from GA and Tropical Storm Bill came through. A guy was sitting in his car and a tree (a BIG fucking tree) was blown down on to his car and he was crushed to death.

Quoted: I just got back from GA and Tropical Storm Bill came through. A guy was sitting in his car and a tree (a BIG fucking tree) was blown down on to his car and he was crushed to death.

Did you get pinned down in his lap?

TRG

Quoted: No, TheRedGoat, Bung wasn't in the gentleman's lap! Didn't you read his post carefully? Bung said it was a 'big fucking tree.' So, I assume that's what he was doing! Eric The(WhereDoYouThink'Sap'ComesFrom?)Hun

Was bung being knotty'?

TRG

Just a little word of caution here, if something like that happens, make sure power lines are not involved before you do anything. One relevant story I'm aware of is a guy hitting a pole and after getting out of his car, walked back toward the road, I think it was night and he didn't see the power lines that he knocked down to about chest high. When you walk into them like that, you literally explode.

If you happen to be in close proximity to downed power lines, you have to understand that power in the ground dissipates in strength in concentric circles. Taking normal length steps can mean one foot is stepping across a difference of several thousand volts which of course will travel through you! So if you are close to that kind of power or feel the hair on your arms standing at attention, take very small steps toward safety. If you are in your car and it comes in contact with power lines, don't think that your tires are going to protect you. The process that happens here is that while tires are somewhat of an insulator being rubber and all, they will conduct high voltage-enough to get hot, catch fire and blow out. Now the rims are sitting on the ground creating a direct path to ground for all that energy, and your gas tank will take care of the finale.

If you should be so lucky as to be able to escape your car, make sure that you do so by jumping in such a way that you are well clear of the car before you come in contact with the ground. Try to land as far away as possible and roll away from it (or at least not fall back against it).

Then come here and tell us all about it