New city bucket truck gets heavy use

The newest bucket truck in the equipment inventory of the City of California is smaller, allowing it to go to areas not easily accessed by the larger trucks already owned by the city.
The newest bucket truck in the equipment inventory of the City of California is smaller, allowing it to go to areas not easily accessed by the larger trucks already owned by the city.

The City of California Electric Department makes good use of the new smaller bucket truck. The truck was on the job for emergency electrical work just hours after delivery was made.

When it was decided to purchase a third bucket truck, it was decided to get a smaller one. The department learned during a previous project, that something smaller and lighter was best for some work. The large trucks turned out to be too heavy when required to be operated on some residential property. If the ground was at all soft, the trucks left deep ruts, and in some cases had to be extricated from mud by using backhoes. That meant landscape restoration costs was added to the project totals.

The smaller truck is lighter, and not as likely to damage lawns if the work requires the truck to go onto residential property. It was also discovered that the smaller truck was better able to be driven between trees, shrubbery and buildings to reach the area of power outage or other problems.

The Electric Department does more than take care of emergencies, perform regular maintenance and routine service.

According to Travis Dicus, who took the job of electric department supervisor in early June, there are several projects currently underway. For one, electric service is being put underground south of Quail Drive, and the above ground poles and wires are being removed. Part of this project is to provide electric service to the new California base being built for Mid-Mo Ambulance District along Highway 87.

Another project is the extension of electric service to a new subdivision south of the intersection of Latham Road and Rice Boulevard. There are 37 lots in this subdivision, requiring 14 transformers and nine streetlights. This is an underground project. Too ensure adequate power to the area, electric service under Latham Road was increased from the nearest substation.

Even while these projects are ongoing, the electric department employees and their equipment often are called to respond to emergencies.

Unfortunately, those emergencies seldom seem to occur during regular working hours. It takes dedicated workers and adequate equipment to deal with these problems.