So is the thnking one dude climbed the pole, cut the hot lines one at a time (he would have been insulated if the pole was dry and he kept away from the ground wire, sort of like the bird pearching on one wire), the multi part cable fell, then as they were trying to pull the cable out of the ground conduit, they got in contact with the hot cables?
Otherwise I am having problems knowing why the cables have a nice cut and are on the ground, looks like they were at the top of the pole at one time. The photos on snopes show the three cable ends and a fourth cable with burned off insulation. I am guessing this was an underground lead coming out of a sub and feeding a string of poles.
And from the snopes photos, it is not a phone cable, looks like black plastic semi rigid casing that melted around the guys. The melted portion looks like rubber, which it is not. The remainder of the casing looks just like the one in front of my house where a 13,900 feed comes out of the ground and goes up a pole. There is a cable at the one guys foot with the insulation burned off, my guess is he stepped on the hot cable and provided a nice ground path.
Last edited by Cabriolet; 01/20/10.
