These days, Michael Monteiro and his crew of Southern California Edison electrical system inspectors start their day between 5-6 a.m. Morning team meetings at the yard have now moved to trucks, where the team communicates and receives work assignments digitally to maintain social distancing.

Monteiro’s team of 10 inspectors cover the San Joaquin region, which includes Kern County, Tulare County and Shaver Lake. They often visit on average 20-25 different customer locations a day to inspect electrical equipment like wires and poles. The teams work safely to help ensure reliability and are part of the company’s wildfire mitigation efforts.

“Our job is to try and find any issues before they happen,” said Monteiro, who has worked at SCE for 15 years. “Our work helps keep communities safe … we don’t want to see another wildfire. We want to make the community safe for all of us.”

Whether rural or urban, SCE’s electrical system inspectors, often in one-person teams, are front-line, essential workers who work directly with customers. These inspectors — wearing safety vests and SCE ID badges in hand — will knock on customers’ doors before accessing electrical equipment on the property. SCE employees and contractors will also have official SCE decals on their vehicles.

If a customer is not home, and if there are not any pressing safety issues, the inspector or supervisor will attempt to contact the owner by phone so they can gain access to the property. With more customers at home during the state’s stay-at-home order, inspectors now have more face-to-face contact with customers, including more run-ins with pets.

“About 90% of the time, there are no issues,” said Monteiro. “Some customers are nervous, and we respect their space and will come back another time.”

Accessing the property is important to help keep communities safe. With increased wildfire mitigation efforts across SCE’s service area, more inspections are taking place and inspectors need to get as close as possible to the electrical equipment. In addition to electrical system inspectors, SCE also conducts aerial inspections involving helicopters and drones.

Electrical system inspectors use an iPad and laptop to track and make notes of their inspections. Using binoculars, scopes and range finders to measure distance, they also carry drills, hacksaws and hammers if repairs need to be made on-site.

“If there is an exposed ground wire on a pole at the public level, we will fix those immediately,” said Monteiro. “Nowadays there are less and less repairs needed because of the stronger, more durable materials being used.”

In addition to inspecting the equipment for any needed repairs, the inspectors also install visibility strips, so poles are visible at night. They also install guy guards, the yellow plastic tubing used to protect the guy wires.

Once the inspectors identify any needed repairs, SCE will schedule line crews to work on the equipment. Work orders are prioritized so the most pressing work is assigned and completed first.

“We would like the public to understand that we are here to keep communities safe,” said Tobie Anderson, an SCE senior manager and former troubleman who has been with the company for 16 years. “These enhanced inspections are often in specific, high fire risk areas. We are there to mitigate fire risk and increase reliability.”

With different SCE crews performing aerial inspections and vegetation management inspections, Anderson understands that customers often feel overwhelmed when multiple crews appear at their doorsteps on different days.

“The crews are performing different, often complex work, but we understand that it’s an inconvenience to our customers to see multiple crews in their yards,” said Anderson.

“We are always looking to improve the process,” he added.