BLUFORD, Ill. – You flip a switch, the lights come on, and maybe you think about all the wiring and transformers that bring us power. Few think of the mammoth power poles that hold it all up.
Ameren Missouri is upgrading our power pole infrastructure, about 10,000 poles-a-year, to lessen the impact of a potential weather disaster in our region.
It’s part of the company’s five-year, $12.4 billion grid improvement plan.
Bridgewell Resources in tiny Bluford, Illinois, about 90 miles East of St. Louis, supplies Ameren Missouri and Ameren Illinois, plus smaller companies into Indiana, from its 25-acre stockpile of about 8,000 poles.
The poles come from Yellow Pine trees (generally up to 60 ft. tall) and Douglas Fir trees (up to 125 ft. tall).
The pines come from tree farms in the Southeast. The trees come from farms in the Northwest and Canada, according to Jerry Schierbaum, who manages the Bridgewell operation in Bluford.
“You don’t think about the poles but you just step outside your door and anywhere you want to look, you essentially a truckload of poles standing (upright) and that’s how we get the power to flip our switch ‘on’,” he said.
The tallest poles can weigh five tons or more.
Bridgewell workers in specialized log loaders load and load hundreds of them from truck and rail daily, as if they’re toothpicks. Linemen say they’re more like the walls of a solid house.
“Without those poles, electricity wouldn’t flow very good down the way,” Matt Bryant, a superintendent of electrical training for Ameren, said. “Electricity don’t flow very good when the wires are down on the ground. The poles are the backbone of our system.”
The ongoing weather catastrophes from Florida to Appalachia are reminders of why it all matters so much. Approximately 300 Ameren workers and contractors are just returning from helping restore power in a West Virginia flood zone.
They and the team at Bridgewell have to be ready for disaster closer to home.
“If it’s anything severe, we’re all on standby. That’s just our business. That’s what we’re ready to do. We’ve spent many nights down here loading poles, unloading poles to keep the poles coming in and keep the poles going out,” Schierbaum said.
The poles are treated to last 40 years; that is, of course, weather permitting.
