Linemen Test Their High-Wire Skills in Annual City Contest

Steve Pumilio scrambled up the 40-foot power pole, whipped his leather safety belt around the top and grabbed for the 185-pound dummy dangling within arm’s reach.

“Now you’re getting it on, Steve!” his partner yelled from the ground.

But Chris Bengtsson, a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power superintendent who was scrutinizing Pumilio’s technique with the precision of an Olympic judge, saw things differently.

There was too much slack in the rope as Pumilio, a lineman for Southern California Edison, lowered the dummy to the ground, Bengtsson ruled. Slamming the mannequin’s legs into the pole on the way down didn’t help either.

Final score in the “hurt-man rescue” event: 94 points out of 100.

“He’s got a little room for improvement,” Bengtsson said as the lanky lineman descended. “All these guys are very good climbers. It’s the little things that make the whole difference.”

Even a minor infraction--like stepping away from the pole without shedding the metal spikes that clamp onto your boots--could cost a guy.

Seventy-four men competed Saturday at the city’s ninth annual Lineman’s Rodeo, a sweaty test of high-wire agility and skill amid a thicket of wooden power poles.

“When the lights go out, a lot of people don’t know what goes into getting them back on,” said Willie Rios, a tanned and tattooed Edison foreman. “It’s a very unforgiving job. A small mistake can cost you your life.”

But not, presumably, at the Lineman’s Rodeo, where the events were performed without live electricity.

This year, 28 teams from six utility companies squared off at DWP’s Sylmar training center to speed-climb, transformer-change and rope-splice their way to the top.

It was a day of gutsy glory, punctuated by an occasional full-throated Tarzan yell, for a cadre of men whose work is seldom noticed by the public--unless the power goes out.

The city’s DWP teams took top honors in overall excellence at the competition, sponsored by DWP and Local 18 Union for Electrical Field Crews in Los Angeles. Four DWP teams now advance to the national contest in Kansas City in September.

Bill Herriott, a 37-year-old DWP superintendent, has been to Kansas City 11 times, collecting armfuls of trophies topped with tiny, golden lineman figurines.

His secret?

“The No. 1 thing is communication,” he said. When aloft on a power pole, Herriott and his partner carefully choreograph their next moves.

“If you touch separate wires at the same time, that’s how guys get killed,” he said.

Among the high-voltage handymen were the Wilke brothers, three strapping men clad in matching blue plaid shirts. For the competition, Tom and Mike manned the power poles, while Larry, who shattered his right foot in a fall two years ago, guided their moves from the ground.

“Yeah, baby!” shouted Larry, a Burbank lineman who sports a yellow hard hat with a Grateful Dead decal. “I like it!”

Tom, who also works for Burbank, and Mike, a DWP man, agreed their work is more exciting than an office job.

“You’re in a different place every day and your office is 80 feet in the air,” Mike said.

Hundreds of fans, mostly family members, braved the 95-degree heat to watch the electrifying feats.

“I’m in awe of the work they do,” said Lisa James, a spectator watching her boyfriend compete for San Diego Gas & Electric.

Seeing the perils of a job, ranked the fourth-most-dangerous nationwide, was a bit unnerving, she said, but the day had its advantages too.

“When he comes home from work and tells me they’re doing a cross-arm change-up,” James said, “now at least I can picture what he’s talking about.”