See Something? Say Something
Print
Northern Lights Inc. (NLI) has more than 3,000 miles of power lines throughout its service territory, stretching from Athol, Idaho, north to the Canadian border and West of Priest Lake, Idaho, all the way to Thompson Falls, Montana. NLI performs regular line inspections of our power lines. However, there are many miles of lines that NLI cannot inspect regularly. Members can help play an important role in alerting us to issues that arise.
Our members are often our first set of eyes on an issue. A member may be driving home and see a tree leaning onto a power line near their house. The member’s power may still be on at their house, and no other members may have an outage, yet NLI would like to be notified so the issue can be corrected. NLI most likely would not know the issue even existed in this situation. If left as is, the tree could fall farther and rip the line down, which would cause an outage. Even worse, the tree could start to burn on the line and cause a fire.
Members may also observe damage to underground equipment. For example, a snowplow may knock 1 of our green padmount transformers or junction boxes off its foundation. This may not create an outage, but it is an unsafe condition NLI needs to correct. In a similar situation, a member may notice a pole that looks like it’s broken or cracked. We have had situations where a pole is hit, but damage is not reported to NLI. The damage must be addressed before the pole fails or falls over.
If something looks out of the ordinary, let us know. Members’ field observations are also helpful when there are widespread outages during extreme weather events.
Our dispatch will make note of any field observations and provide the information to our crews. The best way to report this type of information is by calling our 24-hour, 7-day-a-week outage line at (866) 665-4837 and speaking with a dispatcher or leaving us a message on our automated outage line. It’s helpful to leave a callback number as well. If you are safely able to take a photo or make note of the tagged number on the pole or equipment, that also can be helpful to our dispatch and crews.
With our large service territory, additional information for our crews is helpful and can expedite repairs, help prevent wildfires, and correct potentially unsafe conditions.
Remember to stay back from downed power lines and report them immediately to NLI’s outage line. Our dispatchers will be standing by 24 hours, 7 days a week to help respond to outages.
Northern Lights Engineering & Operations Manager Kristin Burge is an electrical engineer and has worked in the electric utility industry for most of her career.
