Line crews with Mississippi Power move power lines away from the Specialty Roll Products building on 25th Avenue Tuesday morning across from City Hall. The power company is in the process of replacing 600 power poles in Meridian.

    Mississippi Power crews are about halfway through replacing 600 power poles in the city of Meridian.

    The work is part of Mississippi Power’s annual pole inspection and replacement program that insures customers have safe and reliable electricity every day, an email in response to a Meridian Star query states.  

    “We’ve done a bunch of them this year and last year,” Mississippi Power lead lineman David Bramlett said.

    Each year, crews in the Meridian division inspect about 10 percent of the power poles and identify those that need to be replaced.

     “Some of the poles are 40 years old and are simply at the end of their life cycle,” said Eddie Kelly, Meridian division manager. “This work is very important and part of our commitment to maintaining a reliable distribution system for our customers.”

     The poles being replaced range from 30 to 60 feet tall and can weigh up to 1,500 pounds.

     Efforts this year are concentrated in the west – central area of Meridian. Inspections took place between January and April. The work to install the new poles began in May and will be completed by the end of year.

    Tuesday morning, three power company trucks were parked outside the Specialty Roll Products building on 25th Avenue where Bramlett and other Mississippi Power linemen were moving power lines and transformers away from the building.

    “This is the only case we have like this,” Bramlett said. “We are going to move the wire towards the outside of the pole to get it away from the building.”

    Earlier this year, company employees inspected each of the 6,600 outdoor lights in Meridian and replaced burned out bulbs and defective photocells.

    At the request of Mayor Percy Bland and the city council, the power company also added more than 50 new street lights. The city’s power bill to operate the lights during a one month period last year was about $80,000.

    “A well-lit city is going to be a safer city and a better city. That’s one of the costs of having a clean, well-lit, safe city,” Bland told The Star earlier this year. “Of course we want more lights out there. That’s always going to be one of our larger bills every month. We’re a large city and I know the citizens want to feel safe. If we didn’t have as much lighting, it would put us in a weaker position to protect the citizens.”