Boom! Making the safe choice

Some­times the most dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions are the ones that don’t look dan­ger­ous at all. I was remind­ed of this back in 1996 while clean­ing out an old shed on my family’s prop­er­ty, where my wife and I now call home. It became a les­son on safe­ty that has stayed with me ever since.

The shed belonged to my fam­i­ly for years, and it was packed with trash. My grand­pa grew up dur­ing the Great Depres­sion and, like many of his gen­er­a­tion, he didn’t throw any­thing away. We expect­ed the work to be messy, but not much more. Instead, we found sev­er­al live hand grenades and smoke grenades.

I remem­bered hear­ing sto­ries as a kid about my late uncle, who brought grenades and oth­er sou­venirs back from his ser­vice in the Kore­an War, and how they all played with them around the farm. The boy in me want­ed to det­o­nate the grenades for fun, too, but my sen­si­ble wife encour­aged me to report what we found.

A sheriff’s deputy came out and took the grenades to the bomb squad for dis­pos­al. It didn’t take long to real­ize that while these items seemed harm­less, they had the poten­tial to cause seri­ous dam­age to our­selves, some­one else or our home.

Things aren’t always as easy, or as safe, as they seem. That’s espe­cial­ly true when it comes to elec­tric­i­ty.

This May, in recog­ni­tion of Nation­al Elec­tri­cal Safe­ty Month, YEC encour­ages you to think about safe­ty. Cre­at­ing greater aware­ness, hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion or sim­ply pay­ing atten­tion could save a life.

Here are three elec­tri­cal safe­ty reminders:

1. Gen­er­a­tor safe­ty. If you’re with­out pow­er and plug in a gen­er­a­tor, call us to let us know. Don’t con­nect gen­er­a­tors direct­ly into house­hold wiring unless you have an appro­pri­ate trans­fer switch installed. If a gen­er­a­tor is con­nect­ed to a home’s wiring with­out a trans­fer switch, pow­er can back­feed along pow­er lines and elec­tro­cute linework­ers mak­ing repairs. Call­ing us gives our crews notice to be extra safe in your area. Fol­low your generator’s instruc­tions and ask for help if you are unsure how to make it safe for our line­men and your fam­i­ly.
2. Under­ground util­i­ty safe­ty. Your co-op has 2,000 miles of under­ground util­i­ties in its ser­vice ter­ri­to­ry. When you are plant­i­ng shrubs, repair­ing a fence or doing any oth­er yard work, call 811 before you dig so that you can stay safe and avoid cost­ly dam­ages to our lines or those of oth­er util­i­ties.
3. Elec­tric equip­ment. Those large green box­es may be an eye­sore but, in fact, they are trans­form­ers, which enclose thou­sands of volts of elec­tric­i­ty for use in your home. Under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, the out­er green box pro­vides pro­tec­tion from the enclosed elec­tric­i­ty, but you should still steer clear from them, and oth­er equip­ment, as the elec­tric­i­ty inside can cause death or seri­ous injury. Leave them free of plants and fences, too, so line­men can eas­i­ly access them in an out­age sit­u­a­tion. Items in the way of nec­es­sary repairs may be removed for safe­ty rea­sons.

We’re always look­ing out for you and your safe­ty, and we appre­ci­ate help­ing us do the same.