
Scott Anderson with Fellow Jebber's Crew Member
How do you get from here to there? That was the question for Scott Anderson and his crew of three from Jebber’s Contracting, Inc., as he viewed the situation at the Y Street Entrance of Mission Hills Omaha this Thursday morning.
The task at hand was to run an underground power conduit from an OPPD power pedestal in the rear far north side of Jim & Linda Vulku’s back yard (corner of 167th Ave & Y Street) across to the north bell tower at Y Street and from there up into the median and then down and across, or again, under the street, to the south Y Street bell tower, without wreaking havoc with the landscaping in either the Vulku’s yard or the Mission Hills flower beds – A total distance of approximately 175 Ft. At the same time a second, smaller conduit, was to be added to the larger, as it passed under Y Street to the south side.

Vermeer D16 x 20A "Navigator" Self-Contained Directional Boring Machine
Well, if you are Scott Anderson, a twelve-year veteran crew chief with Jebber’s Contracting, Inc., it’s a fairly easy task. You use a Vermeer D16 x 20A “Navigator” Self-Contained Directional Boring Machine to do the underground boring along with a lot of back-breaking hand-shoveling by all four crew members.
The Jebber’s crew started boring for underground power lines at the last Mission Hills entrance today. Since Monday this week, the four member crew had already completed work at the Q, S and V Street entrances.
With a quick turn of a key the Vermeer Boring Machine started and with one hand Scott directed the ten foot machine down from the trailer and into place at the median facing north. A starter hole had been hand-dug already and Scott directed the sonar equipped boring head into the hole. After hooking up a water supply from a 500 gallon tank on the nearby trailer and a quick change of four ordinary C-cell batteries in the sonar equiped boring head, Scott began to move the levers that directed the boring head down and forward into the ground and under the north side entrance street.

Guided By Sonar
Guided by sonar readings on a small monitor mounted on the boring machine next to the operator’s chair, Mr. Anderson continued to ease the boring head forward as additional boring tubes were automatically added as the head moved forward. Water was pumped out of the boring head periodically to cool the boring head and make for an easier path for the boring head through the hard clay soil. In less than ten minutes the machine had reached the first hand-dug hole on the north side of the street. After less than twenty additional minutes the boring head had reached its final target hole next to the power pedestal. The power conduit was hooked to the boring head and the process was reversed to move the conduit back through the ground to the bell tower. The process was repeated for the south bell tower as the boring machine was moved to the north side of the median.

Simple as that and the conduit was in place
Simple as that, and the conduit was in place through which the full power electrical wire would be run by Omaha Electric Company electricians to hook into the meter boxes. Once all the connections are complete and OPPD installs the meters and provides power to them, the entrance signs and bell towers will be illuminated.
See More Photos of Jebber’s Crew at Work – A Boring Story in Photos