WOW - It's amazing how when "under the gun" how many little things that can go wrong end up going wrong. The biggest thing about a job like this is to keep a cool head and have a plan of attack from step 1 to the last step
When I gave my guys an order to cut cables from a reel to a certain length, I always explained how the cable was measured and how many cuts I HAD to have from each reel. They always knew that the cuts needed to be exact. (I learned this from when I screwed up cutting cables as an apprentice)
I see the biggest mistake as not taking the time to verify the voltages on the meter stack PRIOR to turning on the circuit breakers to the tennents spaces. ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING!
When I did power outages like that the one you did,I used to check everything myself with my own meter then I would have another qualified person check everything with another meter just
to be positive everything was OK prior to firing anything back up. I used to do outages where we worked round the clock, start to finish. I did find problems like things were crossed up, but by using the double check method it was discovered before firing up.
I'm not trying to berate you here, trust me we ALL make mistakes.
The big thing is everyone went home safe and as long as you REMEMBER this job, it is now what we call EXPERIENCE! Trust me the next outage you work on this memory will come flooding back and you will know what to do to and what NOT to do.
