Droughtful, just droughtful

Earlier this year, I saw it being done from the ground in Galveston:

FM 3005, May 10, 2011
In lieu of natural rain, two guys in bucket trucks washing salt and debris from electrical insulators to prevent short-circuiting and resultant power outages. 

This morning I read about it being done yesterday using choppers, also on the west end of Galveston.

But it appears as if the same chopper featured in that news article is on the north side of Centerpointe as I write this:

Looking east across a yard adjacent to West Walker Street.

Looking north across the north retention pond.

One wonders how they prioritize their washing.  Salt and sand I can see as being big issues on Galveston Island and in near-coastal Texas City where outages a couple of months ago threw some major refineries offline, but do we actually have similarly-problematic debris accumulations here in League City, 25-odd miles inland??  (Obviously we're closer than that to Galveston Bay, but prevailing winds tend not to come from the direction of the bay).  Interesting.

It sure does look like hazardous work, and it can't be cheap.

Would YOU want to be that guy hanging off the side??

Yet another reason why we're all hoping for the resumption of rainfall.  For bookend and posterity, here's a grab of the most recent Texas drought map which is available here: