44,000 Volt Telephone Pole Wires: Danger, Danger, Danger
Perhaps I have been remiss in recognizing the danger from above in what we casually call "telephone wires". I have been involved in electronics since I was 10 and it has only recently come to me by accident that there is nothing "casual" about them and there's a lot more strung over our front and backyards than just "telephone wires".
Why, I haven't the slightest idea but I always assumed all of these wires, especially high voltage wires were insulated. It turns out they are not. Just bare copper from one end to the other at least where I live. I'm sure an insulated wire would be far less dangerous if, or when, one breaks and whips itself across your front yard but I wouldn't want to come any where near one insulated or not.
A few months ago I was typing at this very computer, next to a front window when I was practically blinded by a huge plasma ball that sounded like a bomb exploding just across the street. Transformers buzzed for blocks and sparks flew everywhere. It seems one of the power wires strung across everyone's front lawns decided to break as it carried 44 thousand volts of instant death straight to the ground after frying a few tree branches on the way down.
Anything close to a fallen wire like that can be "electrified" especially if it's wet or even damp. Tree's, fences, pools, cars, almost anything at all. The problem is without insulation, the entire length of the wire where ever it falls is as deadly as a bolt of lightning. If the wire was properly insulated, only the broken tip of the wire would pose a threat as far as I know but I wouldn't want to grab ahold of the insulated part either. A very large difference as opposed to the entire length of un-insulated wire stretching from one end of your yard to the other. Even house power which is generally 220volts ac, if one wire falls on you at 110 volts ac while you're wet or sweaty or especially barefoot, you could be fried like a forgotten piece of bread in a toaster. It only takes 35 or so milliamps at a voltage high enough to overcome whatever resistance you present at the time to kill you. (A milliamp is 1/1000 of an amp). These high voltage wires, for all intents and purposes, carry unlimited amperage in respect to the currents ability to kill you.
There is no way in hell I would live under or work on my front yard with one of these 44 thousand volt wires hanging overhead just waiting to break and they all will won't they? Sooner or later. When a long wire like that breaks, it can whip all the way up to your front door. There's no telling where it will wind up. When I discovered these wires lacked insulation I asked a power company repair man why they weren't insulated. His anticipated answer was "money". Simply too expensive to insulate them. Well I'm here to tell you power company people and your community legislators that that pretty much stinks. Put the damn things underground and right now. Before any of you potential victims out there move into or buy a house especially with kids that play outside all day, you had better look up because what is up there, sooner or later, will be draped across your lawn killing everything it touches. The constant electromagnetic radiation from these high voltage wires is ever present as well and the closer you get, the more irradiated you become. Who knows what long term damage is being done 24/7 especially to children. When it's hot and humid you can actually see and hear them crackling a deadly discharge into space.
Last year a cyber-friend of many of us was taking down her Halloween decorations in bare feet right after a rain storm. She came across 110 volts from a cheap Christmas-like decoration wire; she died a few days later. Treat the wet ground or anything conductive stuck in it like water pipes in your house as if it was a hot wire straight out of an electrical socket...it is!