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Anything that comes into contact with any part of the distribution
system that delivers electricity to your meter can reduce
the quality of power you recieve. Tree limbs, small animals
and miscellaneous foreign objects are the most common causes
of those irritating blinking lights and reset clocks.
Indian Electric Cooperative works constantly to control as
many of these factors as is physically possible. Our linemen
conduct routine overhead line inspections to detect wind and
weather damage.
Trees native to Oklahoma commonly produce as much as 72"
(six feet!) of re-growth annually, making them one of our
leading causes of reduced power quality and outage. An aggressive,
territory-wide Right-of-Way
Maintenance and Tree Trimming Program was instituted in
1996 to address this problem. With the first phase of this
program completed across a majority of our system, we have
already seen a significant decrease in foliage related problems.
Small animals such as squirrels and even birds can ground
out areas of the system causing brief interruptions of power.
Our crews are currently installing Pest Shields in an effort
to reduce this problem.
Damage to underground facilities can lead to interruption
of power and extremely dangerous situations. Our line crews
are currently fusing and sectionalizing much of our underground
to localize as much as possible interruptions caused by damage
to underground facilities, but we still urge ANYONE digging
for ANY reason to contact OKIE
ONECALL before starting their project. We can reduce the
annoyance of an outage caused by a cut line, but a simple
call to this totally free service could save your life! |