Tag: Tailgate Topics

Incidents Require an Immediate Response

Written by Charles Keeling, CUSP on January 26, 2024. Posted in iP Security Articles, Utility Guardian.

Incidents on job sites can cause pain and mental anguish, disrupt project timelines, escalate costs and have lasting repercussions on an employer’s safety performance record. When an incident occurs, company management and safety professionals must respond in a timely manner. Typically, the first responsive action is obtaining detailed information about the incident as quickly as possible. Ask about any injuries that may have occurred and their severity, as well as whether the injured party is still on the scene or has been transported to a medical facility. Find out if emergency responders...

Recognizing Summit Fever in the Utility Industry

Written by Dave Sowers on July 19, 2016. Posted in iP Security Articles, Utility Guardian.

“Summit fever” is a mountaineering term that describes the drive or compulsion of a climber to reach the summit of a mountain no matter what the cost. The climber has invested time, energy and resources into their goal, and by the time they have the summit of the mountain in their sight, they are so close to accomplishing the feat that they allow their judgment to be impaired. They make choices toward the top of the mountain that they almost certainly would not have made earlier in their journey. There are two factors that contribute to this impaired judgment: physical environment and psychological...

Improving Safety Through Communication

Written by Michael J. Getman, CUSP, MBA on February 7, 2014. Posted in iP Security Articles.

Recently we have heard about serious accidents and fatalities in our industry that have had a significant impact on the injured employees, their fellow workers, their family and friends, and virtually everyone else who knows them. These accidents should not have happened, and when we look at the events leading up to some of them, they could be described by the famous quote from “Cool Hand Luke”: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” Freeman Teague Jr. said, “Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.” Think about your most recent conversation regarding a topic not related...

Traffic Safety for Lineworkers

Written by Mike Caro, CUSP on November 14, 2013. Posted in iP Security Articles.

One of the most dangerous tasks lineworkers perform has nothing to do with heights or electricity. Thousands of people die in the United States each year due to traffic accidents that occur in street and highway work zones, and there are always some lineworkers numbered among those fatalities. These accidents are violent, tragic and almost always preventable. The following Tailgate will provide you with information you need to know to keep yourself and your crew safe in work zones. This may sound counterintuitive, but when you are setting up to work next to or perhaps in a street or highway,...

Emergency Action Plans for Remote Locations

Written by Gary Coleman, CHST, CSP, CUSP, OHST, STSC on September 23, 2013. Posted in iP Security Articles.

According to OSHA 29 CFR 1926.35, employers are required to have an emergency action plan (EAP). For the transmission and distribution (T&D) industry, developing an EAP that enables emergency medical service personnel to quickly respond to an injured individual can pose quite a challenge because T&D work is often performed in remote locations. Therefore, depending on the location of the work, the employer will need to consider many action items when developing an effective EAP. Talk to Local RespondersPrior to beginning work on a project, or as soon as possible thereafter, contact the...

Substation Safety

Written by John Boyle on September 15, 2011. Posted in iP Security Articles.

This month’s Tailgate covers substation safety. Substations have a set of unique rules that are strictly enforced by the governing utility or municipality, known as the designated authority. This article is only a guide that outlines the basic requirements for personnel entering and working in a substation. By design, substations have exposed energized buss work, which is often found in low proximity to the ground. Only qualified workers are allowed to perform and direct work; nonqualified workers must be under the supervision of a qualified worker. Extreme care should be taken when moving equipment...