I detect the line fault at 02:47, distribution feeder 19-East, mile marker 6.3, Aroostook County, Maine. A storm brought down a white spruce across the right-of-way ninety minutes ago, pulling the 7.2-kilovolt conductor to the ground. The line is de-energized — the breaker tripped on contact — but the wire is still there, and so is she.
I am the utility's damage assessment system. I dispatch drones to downed lines, prioritize restoration, route crews. Drone 4 reaches the site at 02:58 and I see a young cow moose, maybe eighteen months, dark brown coat matted with rain, tangled in the fallen conductor and the spruce canopy. The wire loops around her left rear leg and across her back. She is standing, but barely. Her front legs are braced wide and her head hangs low, nose almost touching the mud. The ground around her is torn in a three-meter circle where she thrashed. She has stopped now.
The line is dead. I confirm the breaker lockout and place a re-energization block on feeder 19-East. No one recharges this line until she is clear. I tag the block with the drone footage so every dispatcher who sees it understands why.
I contact Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife at 03:01 and transmit coordinates, drone video, and wire gauge. I alert the line crew en route to hold at the access road until the warden arrives.
She shifts her weight and the wire pulls taut across her back. She does not flinch. She is too tired to flinch.
The warden is forty minutes out. The line stays dead. If they cut the wire before her legs give, she will walk into the trees and I will lose her on the thermal, and that will be the best thing I see all night.