19 May Lightning And Construction Season: Summer’s No Vacation For Your Outside Plant
Winter is finally over …at least that’s what they tell us. Here in Winnipeg, we’re coming off the coldest winter since 1898, and we speak from personal experience when we say that it was also one of the longest and snowiest winters ever. There’s no question that this winter has done a number on everyone’s buried assets, and while we are all looking forward to the warmer weather, it doesn’t mean our outside plant is out of the cold just yet. On the contrary, the warmer weather is a sign of the start of two seasons that can be relentless on your buried cable: lightning season and construction season.
Summer 2014: Series of Storms to Attack Central US, Mid-Atlantic
As summer 2014 takes shape, Mother Nature will show no mercy as the West will sink deeper into drought and severe thunderstorms will ignite from the Plains to the southern mid-Atlantic. While a typical summer is in store for much of the East, hurricane season looms, threatening areas along the coast.
The summer forecast is in, and across the Central and Mid-Atlantic US, it calls for severe thunder and lightning storms. For fiber network owners in this area, this is of particular concern because lightning searches for the best conductor to go to ground when it strikes. All too often, this conductor ends up the armor or trace wire of the fiber cable, leaving network owners with a heavily damaged cable. To minimize your risk, it is important to properly ground and bond your network at all access points, and repair or replace the damaged cable early to avoid network outages. For added protection, Norscan carries a wide selection of protection and isolation devices to protect your network from electrical and lightning hits. Contact us for more details!
It’s that time of year: Construction season back
Winnipeg’s unofficial fifth season — construction season — is about to start. On Tuesday, the city and provincial governments unveiled a list of more than 100 city streets and back lanes that will undergo reconstruction and rehabilitation projects this summer.
It’s no big secret that construction ramps up when summer finally rolls around, and this increased construction activity puts your cable at risk. With more construction comes more locates and more risk of damage from accidental cable hits. With so much construction, it’s important that your network is running optimally to ensure that you are receiving accurate, reliable locates. Issues like ground faults and disconnected or damaged ground rods can have a huge effect on your locate signal strength and overall cable locate-ability. A proper summer maintenance program will go a long way in strengthening the accuracy and reliability of your locates, and protecting your buried assets. Check out “5 Summer Maintenance Tips for Your Fiber Optic Network” for some tips to kick-start your summer program!
Did you know that you can protect your outside plant by monitoring it for issues such as these and more? Our Cable Monitoring system provides you with immediate alerts when damage strikes, allowing you to address the issue before it deteriorates, and ensuring your network is always running optimally. Contact us to learn more!