... on the far side of a house.
In late February 2025, I walked out front to see my driveway blocked by a large PG&E vehicle. I didn't have to go anywhere, so the blockage was not a problem. (And, they could have moved around to let me out.)
Instead of an inconvenience, the morning turned into an opportunity to watch some very impressive work being done. In addition to the PG&E folks present, there was a crane along with two guys who ran it. Finally, the sky was insanely blue. It all made for an appealing chance to take pictures and tell a story. I hope you like the result.
These photos were taken with an Apple iPhone 14 Pro. All images copyright 2025 Brian Wilfley
(To see a full-page version of a photo, click the photo. To return to the story, click the "X" in the upper right.)
Not going anywhere. Notice the equipment stretching out to the left.
A beefy crane started to rise up (raise up?) and quickly became the center of attention.
Stacked just below the crane's hook, between the tree trunk and the fellow with the orange vest, sit two wide but thin "boxes". (They're blue with white letters on the long side.) These are load pads. The crane places them on the pavement to either of its sides. It then extends outriggers which come down on the pads. The pads distribute the force exerted by the outriggers. Otherwise, the outrigger foot would punch a hole in the pavement.
(Notice the orange thing near the top of the boom embedded in the white lattice work. We'll come back to that.)
Above, we see the crane just to the right of the double-yellow line. And to the right, inside the red oval, we see the power pole that will be replaced.
On of the PG&E folks said that this was an urgent repair because tests had shown that the pole was degraded. The result was that the houses on this block had their power shut off all of a sudden first thing in the morning.
To the right is a capture from a Google Map. The power pole is at the center of the red oval. The crane is about where the blue rectangle is near the bottom. Using the scale bar on the map, the distance from the crane to the pole is about 130 ft. And it's on the far side of the house.
Here, we see a few things. First, in the foreground, we see the load pads with the outriggers bearing on them. Notice that the wheels on the crane vehicle are off the ground. Thus the outriggers and load pads are bearing the entire weight of the crane.
Next, attached to the crane's hook, two cables descend and spread apart. They are hooked into two eyes on a blue box. There is another blue box below the first. These boxes are counterweights. But notice they are on the bed of the crane, not on the white part of the crane which is where they should be. More counterweights are coming.
The crane has picked up three counterweights. It got them from the "flat bed" truck to the right in this view. All the counterweights and the load pads came from this truck.
Let's talk about the two guys who ran the crane. One is the operator (below left) and one is the guy hooking everything up. (What is he called in the trade? Is he a rigger?) So, the crane arrives on two trucks, driven by these two guys, who, just the two of them, can do everything necessary to get the crane safely operating.
Recall the "orange thing" from earlier. It turns out to be a ladder. Apparently, the best place to store a ladder is at the top of the boom.
The ladder is used to gain access to modify the rigging. At least the ladder is stored near where it's going to be used.
Now, (above, left) the crane has a strap (what's it really called) with a clevis (I know that one) at the end. We're going to use it to get the new pole off the truck and onto the street. In the video below, the pole comes off the truck balanced. How did he know where to put the strap? He estimated, and then had to correct by about a foot.
Notice (below left) the boom has two blue extensions showing. It's now time to go for all four extensions. With this done, the crane swung around to get the old pole.
Now, we can try to get a feeling for how far the crane is reaching. Actually, this still doesn't covey it. It is arching over the next house, which is about 90 feet further away than the garage that you see on the right. Said another way, the crane is more than twice as far away as is the garage door from where I'm taking this picture.
Actually, they only brought back the top of the old pole. I thought I heard that there were some parts on the old pole that were needed for the new pole. But, it turns out that the rest of the pole "belonged" to others like Verizon and AT&T. So the lower part of the pole is still being used.
This may do a better job of conveying the reach of the boom.
They're getting ready to move the new pole.
Let's Go!
The crane's eye view.
Another view. Note that the crane is reaching over the house behind (in this view) the one you see on the right. It's a whole house further away than you might think.
About 90 minutes later, all packed up and ready to head home. It is 12:30, so barely half a day. Amazing.
If you have questions or comments, please reach out via the contact form below. I'd really like to hear what you think.
Thank you!
