Man Climbing Electrical Tower Causes Widespread Outages
I’ve seen a lot in my emergency preparedness career, but a power outage caused by someone scaling an electrical tower is a new one! I mean, I obviously realize that nasty weather is not the only reason the lights can go out, but this? I can deal with outages caused by animals, domestic terrorism, solar storms, space weather, EMP attacks, system hacking, etc. But a climber? Yikes!
What Exactly Occurred During the Electrical Tower Climbing Incident?
The incident occurred within Duke Energy’s service territory in Charlotte, NC, in January 2022. For some unknown reason, a man climbed nearly 90 feet up the tower. The electrical tower is energized with six 115,000-volt lines, making the man’s actions even more inexplicable.
The most critical aspect of the situation was to avoid a fatality – which turned into a 4-hour ordeal. To do this, Duke Energy redirected the high-voltage electricity from the tower, impacting local customers. This, in essence, is how the incident created an outage situation. Then came the negotiations.
It seems like the man needed to be talked down, something that local officers had to do, making it seem like a suicide attempt. Further complicating the situation was the presence of unwanted bystanders and even a drone that got too close to the action. In fact, the drone pilot is now under investigation for “interfering with police and life-saving rescue operations.” Wow, this just keeps getting weirder!
In the end, the man safely climbed down from the tower without injury. He was then rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Although the man’s mental state was not mentioned, a few cryptic quotes from the officers at the scene seem to indicate that something was amiss with him. However, my guess is that we’ll never know for sure.
As far as I can tell, there are two morals to this story. First, power outages can be caused by a wide variety of situations, so emergency planners need to be prepared for anything. Second, be wary the next time you see someone suspiciously hanging around an electrical tower!
