electrocution

Chris Williamson, 39, was electrocuted on Thursday, June 5 while making repairs to restore electrical service in the City of Florence, Alabama. Williamson worked for the city’s Electricity Department. Tom Smith with TimesDaily.com provides some initial information about the lineman’s death: A storm earlier in the day caused a tree to fall on an electrical line in the Hickory Hills area of Florence. Mayor Mickey Haddock said tree crews were dispatched to the scene to clear the fallen tree debris. Williamson was called upon to isolate the damaged line from the main feed. Williamson was working…
By Elizabeth Grossman While the rest of the country has been experiencing an epic heat wave, in the Pacific Northwest where I live, thus far the summer has been unusually cool. One consequence of the cool weather is a slow-to-appear local tomato crop, made evident to consumers by some remarkably high prices. A pint of organic cherry tomatoes at my neighborhood market recently jumped more than a dollar within a week to $4.99, prompting me to wonder precisely what goes into the price of tomatoes. Regional growers, distributors, and retailers all told me that prices are typically determined by…
As reported in the AP, six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted after drinking alcohol in northeast India and going berserk. Apparently the animals have developed a taste for rice beer, fermented by farmers in plastic drums, and come looking for it when they enter villages. Perhaps taking a cue from the aforementioned self-immolating squirrel, the elephants then uprooted a utility pole and, sadly, zapped themselves. "It's great to have such a huge number of elephants, but the increasing man-elephant conflict following the shrinkage in their habitat due to the growing human population is…