POWDER RIVER ENERGY CORPORATION
PRECorp News M AY 2 0 1 3
Safety around power lines requires constant vigilance By Tim Velder, PRECorp Marketing and Communications Although you don’t see the actual electricity flowing through the line, you could certainly feel it if you have an accidental encounter with one. Safety is the top priority when PRECorp delivers power to its customers. Our System Operations team completes many hours of safety training every year to ensure constant attention is paid to the high-voltage systems we maintain. These voltages can not only cause injury, they can take a life. Our line crews and other operations personnel know the proper procedures when dealing with maintenance, construction, and repair of distribution lines. However, safety concerns stretch beyond the immediate tasks of climbing poles and restoring power. We must consider safety in all aspects of our day.
Our employees often encounter situations of accidental and random events impacting power facilities. People have accidentally driven vehicles and large equipment into power poles. Some-
DANGER Hazardous voltage
Will shock, burn, or cause death.
Keep Away! Keep Alert! times drivers underestimate the height of their vehicle and become tangled in power lines. Diggers sometimes discover too late they have hit power cables buried underground.
It’s not just people. Animals and insects are also in the picture. These creatures find ideal hangouts on our power lines, cross arms, insulators, and other attachments. Bugs hide in the tight spaces in the guards and insulators, while birds try to root them out. The resulting electrocutions for the predators can knock out power or cause a fire. Trees or branches tend to grow quickly into our lines and keeping trees trimmed and away from the poles and power lines takes regular maintenance. Fires start when lightning hits a pole, or wind slaps power lines together. It doesn’t take much of a spark on dry grass or timber for high winds to push a fire several miles before fire crews can catch up to it. PRECorp’s maintenance crews are working to replace weather-damaged
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In This Issue Regular business: 1-800-442-3630 • Report an outage: 1-888-391-6220 www.precorp.coop
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