When a tree is on the wire, the wire's owner goes first.

Electric service in Davidson County comes from more than one provider, and a storm is the wrong time to guess which one owns the line in the yard. The county's providers include these three, each listed with the number it publishes for a downed line or an outage:

• Duke Energy Carolinas: 800.769.3766, which Duke also writes as 800.POWERON
• Lexington Utilities, the City of Lexington's electric system: (336) 248-2337 to report an outage, with an automated attendant the city says is available 24/7
• EnergyUnited: 1-800-386-4833 (1-800-EUNITED) for a downed line, and Member Support at 1-800-522-3793 for hazards such as sagging lines, damaged poles or loose wires

Duke Energy named Davidson among North Carolina's hardest-hit counties in its October 29, 2020 Tropical Storm Zeta release. EnergyUnited says it serves portions of the county. And another city's electric department described itself, in a December 21, 2018 request for proposals, as having service in small border areas within Davidson County. The name of your town does not settle which utility owns the line. The bill does, and the Davidson County storm log keeps the three numbers above beside its storm records.

Three pieces of equipment matter when a tree comes down on the line to a house. The first is the wire from the pole. OSHA's electrical definitions call it the service drop: "The overhead service conductors from the last pole or other aerial support to and including the splices, if any, connecting to the service-entrance conductors at the building or other structure." Duke Energy calls the line between a pole and the meter at a home the service line.

The other two are on the house. A weatherhead, in the definition Dominion Energy gives first responders, "is a waterproof hood that protects service wires as they enter a building," and the mast below it "carries the service wires from the weatherhead to the meter." The meter sits in a meter base, and two of the county's utilities have said who repairs that.

EnergyUnited is explicit: "If the meter base, riser (conduit) or weatherhead is pulled away from your house, you are responsible for having it mounted back onto your house." Its member responsibility page adds a warning worth reading twice: "There exists the possibility you could still have power in your home even though any one of these items, or possibly all three, are pulled away from the house." EnergyUnited says to "contact someone qualified to safely make electrical repairs," and its member guide asks members to call 1-800-522-3793 "as soon as possible to turn off the flow of electricity to your house," then to call again once the repair is made.

Duke Energy's storm updates say much the same about a meter box. In its September 28, 2024 restoration update, Duke wrote that "A property owner with a damaged meter box or one that is pulled away from the structure will need to enlist an electrician to reattach the meter box and/or provide a permanent fix," and that "In some instances, an electrical inspection may be required by the county before Duke Energy can reconnect service."

For Lexington Utilities customers, none of the city's pages that could be read for this guide covers it, so ask Lexington Utilities. The city lists (336) 248-2337 for outages and Customer Care at (336) 243-2489.

The Overhead High-Voltage Line Safety Act, G.S. 95-229.5 to 95-229.13, defines a high-voltage line as "all aboveground electrical conductors of voltage in excess of 600 volts measured between conductor and ground," and which wires meet that is the utility's to say.

Unless the danger has been guarded against as the Act provides, it prohibits work that will cause a person "to be placed within six feet of any overhead high-voltage line," or any part of a tool or material to come within six feet. For covered equipment and covered items, which include "handheld tools, ladders, scaffolds" among others, the distance is 10 feet "or such greater clearance as may be required under the circumstances by OSHA." Nobody may make room by moving the line: the Act bars providing clearance by "raising, moving, or displacing any overhead utility electric lines" or by "pulling or pushing any pole, guy, or other structural appurtenance."

What the Act does settle is who decides. The line's owner or operator makes "the final determination as to which arrangements are most feasible and appropriate under the circumstances," from temporary barriers to temporary de-energizing and grounding to temporarily relocating or raising the line, and it may determine "that no arrangements can be made that would allow the proposed work to be carried out in a reasonably safe manner or at reasonable cost." For a crane on a planned job near a line, the same Act is taken apart in what a tree crane needs from your lot.

When a line is reported down, Duke describes the order it works in: its process is "to check the lines to ensure they are in a safe condition," and it prioritizes "the repair of public safety situations." In its September 28, 2024 update, Duke described crews working to "locate downed power lines and make sure electricity is no longer flowing through the wires." For trees on its lines, Duke's rights-of-way FAQ says it will dispatch crews "to clear the vegetation from power lines and equipment."

Until that happens, the tree and the wire are one hazard. OSHA's tree-care guidance says tree workers "can also be electrocuted when a tree limb or branch makes contact with an energized power line," and Duke says "Only line clearance qualified personnel should perform tree work around or adjacent to power lines and electrical equipment." A tree crew that arrives while a tree is still on a live line is waiting on the utility, not the other way around.

Once the utility has made the line safe and cleared what was on it, the rest is ordinary storm work. Duke's FAQ is plain that the cleanup is not Duke's: it says it does not clean up "tree debris that results from severe weather," and that disposal of the wood, limbs or debris from that emergency work is the property owner's responsibility. Nothing on the EnergyUnited or Lexington pages read for this guide covers it, so ask the utility on your bill.

That part is tree work, and 24-hour emergency tree service is where it starts, at (336) 963-8330. If the tree is also lying on the house, how a tree's weight comes off a house explains the lift. Until then, the first hour after a tree hits your house has the order to work in, and what not to touch after a storm covers the rest of the yard.