Protecting Against Heat Exposure During Outage Restoration

Image courtesy of Tim Samoff under Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic Deed, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.

Heat exposure is a tremendous hazard for utility workers when restoring power in the hot summer months, which is not a surprise given that heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S., according to OSHA.  And it’s a problem that will get worse before it gets better, as climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of summer heatwaves.

Key Recommendations for Protecting Utility Workers from Heat Exposure

While some state governments have published heat safety standards, no federal standards currently exist (although OSHA has a federal heat standard under consideration).

Luckily, most heat illness or death is preventable with sufficient water, shade and rest, and so protecting workers from heat exposure usually comes down to common sense.

The most critical thing is to have a written plan in place, consistent with OSHA guidelines, that documents safety procedures and policies during extreme heat events.  And of course, employees must receive training on the plan.

Overall, the list of must-haves includes:

• Providing access to clean drinking water.
• Encouraging employees to rest or seek shade when feeling compromised.
• Scheduling rest periods and breaks often.
• Providing training and/or job aids that help identify heat stress symptoms and illnesses and what to do about them.
• Adapting work schedules, when possible, to cooler times to counter the effects of peak temperature times (I know, I know…we’re not talking about a ton of flexibility when customers are out of service, but there may be some minor tweaks on the margins that could be considered).

One additional consideration is that the extreme heat safety plan should not be created in a vacuum.  The employees that handle restoration tasks must be consulted and included in the process.  Simply put, they know more than anybody about the inherent risks.

In the final analysis, excessive heat exposure to field workers could be fatal, and as such the onus is on the company to ensure there is a written plan in place, and that employees have been trained and drilled on the plan.