How to keep your family safe during the next power blackout
Hurricane Matthew has thankfully moved away from the U.S. Coastline after the southeastern U.S. was hit hard by the Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds near the coasts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
But with every big weather event, there are electric shock tragedies. And, unfortunately, it’s just a matter of time before another hurricane or major storm knocks down a power line and causes a power outage.
Aside from the rather small, inconvenient matter of being in the dark or stuck with an uncharged cell phone, the issue of blackouts becomes far more serious when it comes to the health and safety of you and your loved ones.
Many of our own cases as electrocution lawyers involve people tragically electrocuted or who suffered disabling electrical shock injuries from downed wires. One of the most common causes of downed wires are storms and big weather events such as hurricanes. With frequent power outages, we’d like to share some important safety tips to better protect you and your family.
- Beware of downed power lines: Blackouts caused by a downed line that encroaches on the area where people live, play and work are serious hazards. Also, if a power line falls on a car, call for help and stay inside the vehicle.
- Prevent carbon monoxide poisoning: Use generators, pressure washers, grills and similar items outdoors only.
- Only use generators away from your home: Again, never run a generator inside a home or garage, or connect it to your home’s electrical system.
- Be sure your water is safe: Check with local authorities to be sure your water is safe.
- Only use flashlights: Only use flashlights for emergency lighting, as candles are a fire hazard.
- Stay hydrated: In hot weather, stay cool and drink plenty of fluids (preferably bottled water) to prevent heat-related illness.
- Stay warm: In cold weather, wear layers of clothing, which help to retain body heat.
- Remember food safety: Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed. Most food requiring refrigeration can be kept safely in a closed refrigerator for several hours. An unopened refrigerator will keep food cold for about four hours. A full freezer will keep the temperature for about 48 hours.
Here’s more information on how to protect yourself from the CDC.
What’s the relationship between power outages and downed wires?
Power outages and blackouts can be caused by transformers, generators in power plants, grid failure, and even something so small as a squirrel getting into installation and shutting down related systems.
As an injury attorney who’s been litigating electrocution and electric shock cases for more than 30 years, I always explain the relationship between power outage blackouts and downed wires and symptomatic.
See, blackouts can be a symptom of downed power lines, because when power lines fall, the power can go out. Strong storms like Hurricane Matthew always seem to find the weakest links when it comes to power line structures. They will stress the power lines and infrastructures that have been improperly maintained and inspected; the ones that are too old and too weak. And that’s when the power lines fall and create serious hazards.
For power companies, the best defense against storm damage is one of proactive maintenance, inspection and a repair program to make sure power infrastructure is in a safe condition. Many of the utilities I’ve had cases against as an attorney had no maintenance plan at all, or rather these utilities had a default maintenance program that essentially uses components until they fail. It has been a three-decade long series of choices to spend money building out growing suburbs and exurbs, instead of replacing infrastructure that is long past it’s expected service dates. When preventative inspections and maintenance is ignored, equipment that is late in life expectancy will foreseeably fail under the stresses of storms, including wind, rain, ice and snow.
Last week, I wrote about what downed power lines looks like in real life to help readers understand that they need to stay away, and that downed lines can easily be mistaken for utility cables.
