A mother and her two sons were asleep in their beds in their Sellwood home when the wooden crossbar on a 50,000-volt PGE transmission line, as thick as a telephone pole, fell next to their house, causing an electrical arc and an enormous explosion inside the house. The crossbar collapsed because the wood was rotten to the core.

PGE’s inspection routine consisted of zipping over the transmission poles in a helicopter. The family members suffered physical and emotional damages, and we settled the multi-million dollar lawsuit for a confidential amount.