Electric co-op encourages first responders to be safe

Clint Smith, manager of administration for Callaway Electric Cooperative, demonstrates safety techniques to a group of firefighters, police officers, EMTs, construction workers and municipal workers on Wednesday.
Clint Smith, manager of administration for Callaway Electric Cooperative, demonstrates safety techniques to a group of firefighters, police officers, EMTs, construction workers and municipal workers on Wednesday.

Experts in electricity used alarming videos and horrifying stories to drive home the lesson "be safe" to a classroom of first responders Wednesday.

"We need to understand each other's jobs," said Clint Smith, manager of administration for Callaway Electric Cooperative. "Our goal is to get everyone home at the end of the night."

About 60 people - firefighters, police, construction workers and municipal employees from Callaway and Cole counties - attended a class to learn what to do when trouble arises and electric lines and equipment are involved. Caution and patience will pay off in lives saved, Smith said.

"We want to leave you guys with maybe more solutions," he said.

The first instinct people have - and not just first responders - is to help people in trouble, according to Smith and his co-worker, Mark Voss, manager of engineering for the cooperative.

"When electricity is involved, it adds a layer of danger," Smith said. He advised first responders to wait until utility companies arrive and disconnect service if at all possible. "People don't know how dangerous a tree lying on the line can be because of the root system."

The videos were provided by safeelectricity.org, a program of the Energy Education Council. Those videos and others may be viewed on the website, Smith said.

One focused on the fallacy that pulling an electric meter from the side of a burning building cuts the electrical feed to that building. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"They may have alternative energy, such as solar panels, that sometime bypasses the meter," he said.

Smith added sometimes electrical service enters a structure from the other side of the building, so live wires run through the building to the location of the meter. Sometimes crooks could have tampered with meters or installed a generator. Never trust utilities are off just because a meter has been removed.

"Pulling a meter is not really a disconnect," Voss stressed.

Smith said he started working at the co-op 20 years ago.

"I came out here in 1996 and started mowing grass," he said. "I saw a guy up on a pole and wanted to do that, too."

He said he knows first-hand how easy it is to make deadly mistakes.

"One day, we got a mayday - a long-time employee took hold of a guy wire with his bare hands," Smith said, adding the employee neglected to put on his rubber gloves during that service call. "We pulled him out of the bucket and he was dead."

Calling the families of employees who have died on the job is a tremendously painful task and one Smith wants to avoid.

"I can't tell you enough, especially you firefighters and police: you'll get off 99.9 percent of the time (not following safety precautions), but there's that one time always be cautious out there."

One call of a downed power line revealed a resident who thought she would try to put out the sparks by dousing them in water. She waited for utility crews, however, and lived.

And to those people who get in a wreck with a power pole: Stay in the car.

"Everybody's most important instinct is to help that person - but tell that person to stay in the car," Smith said.

If the car starts to burn and the driver needs to flee, they should never touch the ground and the car at the same time. Instead, leap from the car with two feet together, then shuffle away with both feet touching each other at least 50 feet from danger.

"I would probably shuffle on down the road," Voss said to a question about how far to remove oneself from the scene.

Mark Tate, Holts Summit street superintendent, said he didn't know about that.

"I would probably have just jumped out," he said.

The same thing holds true when overhead equipment becomes snagged in power lines: Stay put. That applies to fire department ladders, construction companies with aerial equipment, dump trucks and even farm equipment.

"We get equipment in the lines a lot, especially at harvest time," Smith said.

The best thing to do, Smith said, is alert 911, whether you're a resident spotting a utility pole on fire or a fire chief wanting to enter a burning building.

"Once the power company gets on scene, it doesn't take five minutes to cut power," he said. "I know. An emergency call comes in, and you go out. If there are utilities involved, notify the dispatcher immediately every second counts."

Smith recounted an incident last year on State Route F where a woman hit a power pole and a hot line was touching her car.

"A state highway patrol officer walked straight up to that car," he said, adding the officer wasn't injured - but it could have been a far different ending.

The morning session was a new educational effort the co-op is offering.

"This is something new that we're starting," he said. "We visit all the (elementary) schools in the county, but we didn't really have anything for adults."

Anyone interested in the presentation can contact Callaway Electric Cooperative at 573-642-3326.