Christopher Root calls it, “The worst day of my professional life — ever and by far.”

It was 2001, early January. While many people were still nursing their post-holiday hangovers, workers at Massachusetts Electric Co., a facility run by National Grid, were back on the job at the utility's substation in Everett, Massachusetts. Several crew members were performing a routine maintenance task at the site, which houses a large power transformer that feeds electricity to this working-class neighborhood just north of Boston.

Suddenly, a 4,000-V power line, which had not been properly shut down, ignited insulating oil. Three maintenance workers were set ablaze, each covered with second- and third-degree burns. One man died instantly. Two women were critically injured.

“It was tragic,” recalled Root, senior vice president of operations and maintenance for National Grid. “I was the one who had to go to the guy's house and tell his family that he was not coming back. It was awful.”

The events of that day were so awful, in fact, Root left his position in the operations area. For several years, he worked in engineering for National Grid. Today, back at the operations helm, Root says he uses the mental imagery of that fiery day to impress upon everyone at the utility just how important workplace safety is.

“I said, ‘If I go back into operations, I am never going to another funeral,’” Root noted. “I want everyone in this company to feel the way I feel about worker safety — without having to go through what I've gone through.”

That attitude is one shared by many utility management teams, none of whom want to experience such tragedies. Thus, they are taking steps to ensure past incidents do not simply fade from workers' memories. Many utilities are implementing changes that place more emphasis on safety than ever before. From making safety personal for every employee to new protective technologies to an amplified vigilance in enforcing rules and regulations, safety is the cause célèbre for utilities across the country.

Incidents Lead to Action

When Root began his goal of enhancing worker safety, one of his first actions was to create an awareness campaign that personalized the responsibility for safe practices. “We put pictures of families on our posters,” Root explained.

The posters emphasized that accidents affected real individuals, not nameless employees with messages such as: “This is Mike. He not only works in the line department, but he goes home to watch his kids play baseball every night. Let's make sure he gets to keep doing that.”

Neil Weisenfeld, department manager of distribution cable systems for Consolidated Edison, has similar objectives. Weisenfeld heads up the testing and development of new sensing devices to detect arcing and dangerous gases in underground electrical work. The need for these devices was recognized after investigating the conditions that led to an on-the-job death at Con Edison.

In that 2008 tragedy, underground gases ignited as a splicer was working on an electrical fault. The man could not get out of the manhole in time and asphyxiated.

Immediately, Weisenfeld says, Con Edison launched an investigation into the incident. Examiners learned that no similar events had ever taken place in quite the same way. But, more importantly, they determined such a fire was likely preventable with the proper technology and training to search for electrical shorts in underground systems. As a result, for the past several years, Weisenfeld and his team have been working on new fault-detection technology, which they have dubbed the Manhole Arc Recognition System (MARS). Weisenfeld says he hopes the new equipment will help workers avoid similar incidents in the future.

Root recalls the story of another worker trapped inside a manhole that had rapidly filled with smoke. Unlike the previously described incident in which the worker died, this worker made it out safely. Despite the positive outcome, Root recognizes that worker was lucky.

“The manhole filled with smoke at such a rapid rate that the guy could not even see a ladder to get out,” Root said, noting the ladder was directly behind the blinded worker.

Finally, someone from above yelled directions to where the ladder was so the worker could find it and escape. When Root heard details of the incident, he again was determined to make safety-procedure improvements so no one would ever get lost underground again.

“Now we tether all of our underground employees,” he said. “We have a rope on them, partly to pull them out but also for them to find their way out if they should lose vision while underground.”

Focus on Safety

Like at National Grid and Con Edison, several unrelated workplace accidents served as impetus for a renewed focus on safety at Entergy.

Drew Clem, manager of transmission and distribution for Entergy in Mississippi, says an employee encountered a live wire while working high on an electrical pole. The worker lost his grip, plummeted to the ground and sustained serious medical issues. “From that point on,” Clem said, “we have gone to 100% fall protection.”

Fall protection means all Entergy employees must now use a harness when climbing poles. The utility has forbidden crews from free climbing and requires each lineman to don personal protective equipment prior to pole ascent. The utility's documents outline the specific techniques and safety gear required for climbing substation structures, poles and towers: a body harness, retractable lanyard and shepherd hook.

Entergy also is working on adopting the best fall-protection solutions for work on scaffolds, crane booms, high-load trailers and roofs. Its documents emphasize that any task that requires a worker to be more than 4 feet off the ground merits 100% fall protection.

Entergy's emphasis on safety intensified when the utility experienced another heartbreaking incident. Mike Vaughn, vice president of transmission and distribution asset management for Entergy, says the utility lost a lineman in 2003 after a storm toppled trees and power lines in Baltimore, Maryland. While helping to clear a site, the crew member walked into a downed conductor hidden by high brush.

“The gentleman was the type of person everyone loved,” Vaughn explained.

With grief draining coworkers' emotions, senior staff were determined not to let the man's death be in vain. They focused on redirecting their employees' loss into an effort to make them more aware of their own personal safety. Entergy developed the enterprisewide “Target Zero” campaign aimed at eliminating safety violations.

As part of that effort, the utility researched areas where employees were being lax in maintaining safety precautions. Team members discovered employees were diligently conscientious about following safety procedures when handling electrical conductors on overhead wires. However, when working with conductors that had fallen to the ground, those same employees seemed to forget the safety rules.

The utility used this knowledge to emphasize the appropriate safety procedures used during storm-restoration efforts when downed wires and conductors were common. The campaign paid huge dividends when Hurricane Katrina ravaged Entergy's New Orleans territory in 2005.

“We had 15,000 people come in and help with Katrina,” Vaughn noted.

The utility required every employee to go through a detailed safety orientation before he or she could begin work. “We covered everything from how to drive the forklifts to where and how to set tents,” Vaughn said. “We also talked about getting the right amount of rest and rehydration, about protection from local vegetation and insects — a whole host of things.”

Today, Vaughn added, “Safety and health permeate everything we do.”

Rick Riley, Entergy's vice president for energy delivery, adds that safety during storm restoration is as much about prestorm preparation as about what happens when the rains come, winds howl or lightning strikes. “We have a lot of practice sessions, drills and a rigid command structure in place,” Riley said.

When weather incidents do occur, teams are ready. “It is not some ad hoc system,” Riley explained. “We have a plan, and we work it during an event.”

Part of that preparation includes stockpiling tested grounds and tested grounding mats so they are ready to go when a storm hits. Similarly, Vaughn says Entergy now outfits all field personnel with personal voltage detectors (PVDs), no matter what their role is in the recovery effort. “We make sure everyone in the field has them, even the logistics personnel delivering food,” he said.

Technological Helpers

PVDs, sensors for underground work and pole-climbing harnesses are examples of tools or technology that are advancing safety at electric utilities. Other technological developments also are helping.

Frank Ginocchi, a director of safety and health at American Electric Power (AEP), notes that his utility takes full advantage of such beneficial equipment. It outfits many of its crews with PVDs and fall-stop harnesses, and recently supplied all of its underground work crews with infrared cameras. The utility also uses information technology, such as injury data, to track safety and health issues and determine the best steps to address them.

Ginocchi says that when he joined AEP in 2006, the utility reviewed all the data related to injuries and found that working on wooden electrical poles resulted in the highest incidents of injury. “We had a safety summit and immediately instituted fall protection.”

AEP also provides onboard computers in its service trucks to deliver job-site safety briefings directly to workers. In the past, Ginocchi explains, crews would gather each day for daily on-site safety briefings before starting work. Today, he says, many work sites consist of a single individual, allowing little opportunity for a manager to brief that person before he or she starts working. The onboard computers have solved that communications lapse by enabling individuals to sign in and review safety briefing information on their own.

To ensure participation, the system requires each employee to log in once the online briefing has ended. According to Ginocchi, AEP has been using computerized job-safety briefings for about two years now.

Another use of safety-focused communications technology involved a recent trial program at AEP equipping vehicles with a remote-controlled panic button similar to the OnStar safety system in GM vehicles. By pushing a key fob, a crew member in the field could signal a dispatcher at headquarters that a worker was in trouble. AEP saw immediate results. In three or four incidents, employees experienced medical emergencies, such as going into diabetic shock. The key fobs worked flawlessly in alerting headquarter staff quickly. “With other crews in the area, sometimes we were able to get to the injured worker before EMS did,” Ginocchi said.

Entergy's Riley says cell phones, smart phones and GPS/GIS offer similar promise in enhancing worker safety. “You just have so much more data going back and forth,” he observed. “You can map out jobs so much better, see all the circuits, make better plans and disseminate information so much more easily.”

Do Not Let Technology Distract

While utilities can undoubtedly use technology to help promote safety, in some cases, technology does become more of a safety hindrance.

Mike Hyland, vice president of engineering for the American Public Power Association (APPA), wholeheartedly supports the use of personal electronic devices to improve communication and safety in the field. However, he also points out that workers can misuse the devices, and they can become a distraction. “We see cellular phones both helping and hurting,” Hyland said.

To negate improper use of the devices, APPA organized a safety session called “Cell Phones in the Bucket” to remind employees to turn off their cell phones while working. The APPA apprenticeship program has banned the use of cell phones on the job. “There is a difference in this new generation of workers now,” Hyland noted.

He describes a situation in which crew members did not recognize the potential danger of being preoccupied with their phones. One worker at height in a bucket was using his cell phone to take photos of another crew member in a bucket across from him. “He thought it would be cool to post the picture on Facebook and didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with that,” Hyland explained.

Vaughn has seen similar problems among crews at Entergy. “To put this in perspective,” he noted, “in the early days of Katrina, all we had for communication were cell phones.” Mobile phones were critical in allowing crews to communicate with one another when no other utilities were running. “But the downside is that cell phones can become a distraction, too. You have to be wary and cognizant of that.”

Perhaps more troubling is that reliance on technology and safety devices can lead to a subtle relaxation of vigilance. Wearing a PVD or safety harness, for instance, can lead an employee to feel the technology will protect him or her from all possible harm. Such attitudes underscore the fact that safety is as much about technique and human behavior as it is about equipment and technology.

Ginocchi says AEP has instituted new safety techniques to reduce workplace injury and death. For example, previously when crew members needed to rack out — or disconnect — a circuit breaker, they had to do so manually, putting them at serious risk of being jolted by an electrical arc.

To eliminate that hazard, Ginocchi explains AEP now uses remote racking systems. “You can use a motor driver with a cord so that you can stand 20 feet away and rack that breaker in,” he said. “The person does not have to stand in front of it anymore.”

Policies and Procedures Are Key

Technology and new safety procedures are not the only ways to improve worker safety; sometimes, simply paying attention to the basics is all that is needed.

At AEP, Ginocchi has focused on commonsense steps such as initiating simple reviews of vehicle safety and work processes before entering the winter season. “We put a playbook together for winter-safety preparedness and preparation,” he said. Toward the end of October, each department has specific tasks to accomplish. For example, staffers check snow tires, make sure each vehicle has a snow brush, refill windshield-washer fluid and stock up on snowshoe accessories.

Having this type of detailed plan in place has drastically reduced the number of slip and fall accidents, Ginocchi says.

Hyland of the APPA says these types of solid safety policies and practices go a long way toward avoiding injury and death on the job. At APPA, that has meant drilling down to fundamental safety procedures.

“We have been pushing cradle to cradle, ground to ground and lock to lock,” Hyland said. Cradle to cradle refers to putting rubber gloves on before leaving the cradle of the boom and not taking them off until climbing out. Ground to ground, he explains, means pole climbers don their rubber gloves while on the ground, climb the pole and never remove that safety gear until they are back on the terra firma. Lock to lock, he says, means any time workers approach a lock for a transformer cabinet, they don their rubber gloves.

Hyland instituted the measures after learning statistics on users' forgetfulness; researchers who studied crews in the field discovered that when workers wore leather gloves to climb a pole, they often forgot to switch to rubber gloves once they reached the top. Thus, the habit of donning the gloves while still on the ground ensured workers were wearing them when it was most critical to do so.

“That alone — rubbering up — will reduce deaths,” Hyland stated.

Moe Alters, safety coordinator for Westar Energy, says he believes one of the most important tips for improving safety is more interaction between utilities. Utilities need to share and coordinate safety practices and policies, he says. A great way to do so is participating in yearly lineman's rodeos, where linemen compete to switch out conductors and climb poles in the shortest time and test other skills of agility and speed.

“At the rodeos, you can pick up on equipment, rules and procedures from the other linemen,” Alters said.

The events also bolster a utility's claims that safety policies are critical. “Our linemen find out that some of the rules and regulations we hold them accountable for are the same as anywhere you go,” Alters explained.

“You also see guys from 100 or 150 miles away or further, and they may have experienced different things or are trying out new ways. It becomes something of a cultural exchange,” he added.

A Culture of Safety

One thing on which most utility safety executives seem to agree is that the culture of safety permeates today's electric utility. Riley says an Entergy motto is, “Safety always trumps speed.” His utility is dedicated to reducing lost-work-time incidents through its Target Zero safety campaign. “It has become simply unacceptable to have an accident here,” he said.

AEP's Ginocchi has similar thoughts. “We really treat safety as a core value,” he said. “We don't like to call it a priority because we feel priorities change, according to the crisis of the day. Core values don't change. Getting our employees and everyone working for us safely home at the end of the day is what it's all about.”

Vaughn adds that Entergy extends its safety promotion beyond the workplace. “We give our employees tags that they can take home and put on their power tools that say, ‘I am a safe worker at Entergy.’ That reminds the person and their family members that safe work and safe practices aren't just about the job site. We need to take safety seriously at home, too.”

Root says the real measure of National Grid's success is people doing the right thing and making sure they follow the procedures. “People try to cut a corner or they don't believe a rule is important,” he explained. “You have to make it understood that if you cut a corner on a procedure, you are running a risk that is not acceptable.”

Root says that National Grid, like all utilities, keeps a sharp eye on field operations and is always looking for ways to beef up safety procedures, techniques and practices, along with taking advantage of the newest safety equipment. Such enhanced awareness has helped decrease the number of tragic consequences workers have experienced.

Making It Safe to Go Underground

Neil Weisenfeld, department manager of distribution cable systems for Consolidated Edison, worries about the dangers that lurk underground. To be more specific, Weisenfeld and his colleagues have spent the past several years working on sensing devices that can detect underground electrical activity — arcing — that can lead to underground fires, fatalities and injuries in manholes and subterranean conduit.

An arcing fault is an electrical discharge from defective wires or cabling. Weisenfeld says arcing is known to occur occasionally in underground systems, particularly underneath streets such as those in New York City. Big Apple electrical systems must withstand significant moisture, as well as exposure to rodents, salts, ice and vibration, both from traffic overhead and water streams and subway systems underground.

Detecting an arc before it ignites a fire is key, but the science is not always straightforward, Weisenfeld explains. “A motor running, or even something as simple as a blow dryer, can produce arcing,” he said. “The trick is the ability to differentiate the patterns, between the benign arcing of the blow dryer and the unwanted arcing we are trying to prevent.”

To date, Weisenfeld and his team have developed a briefcase-sized arcing detector called the Manhole Arc Recognition System (MARS). Con Edison has been testing the device in field trials throughout New York City and in Westchester County, New York. A few other utilities have started to show interest in the gadget, as well. To get the word out to more utilities, Con Edison is teaming up with the Electric Power Research Institute to develop and promote the device to other utilities, and the team hopes to eventually shrink the detector to handheld or roughly cell phone size.

Con Edison also has a pilot project in which the utility has placed roughly 30 permanent arc-detection sensors underneath the streets of New York's Lower East Side. “They are 24/7 sentinels looking for arcing,” Weisenfeld stated. “Our early success tells us we are going in the right direction, and that, one day, responding to arcing will be a thing of the past. We will be able to be more proactive going out and performing maintenance before the shorts happen.”

Rewarding Safety

Buckingham Manufacturing Co. manufactures a utility safety harness for pole climbers called the BuckSqueeze and also has a Safe Users Club that recognizes workers who escape serious injury due to using the company's belt. To qualify, an employee's supervisor must submit an application detailing the arrested-fall incident and include the model number of the unit worn. Members in the club receive a Carhart safety jacket with a Buckingham safety recognition emblem as well as a plaque from the firm.

Another company with a similar program is Capital Safety, a manufacturer of fall protection used by utilities as well as construction crews, oil and gas exploration workers, mining workers and transportation crews. Next to its employee break room, Capital Safety has a world map with flags that denote every location where its safety devices have saved a life or helped a worker avoid serious injury due to a fall.

“It's a nice way to remind our staff that what we do is critically important,” says a company spokesperson. “What we do saves lives all over the world.”

Personal Voltage Detectors

PVDs such as HD Electric's V-Watch have been on the market for several years now and are increasing in popularity. Utility or arborist workers can suspend the safety devices from lanyards around their necks or clip them to shirt pockets or safety harnesses in front of their body.

HD Electric's V-Watch works by detecting and alerting workers to the presence of electrical fields or energized electrical equipment. When the device V-Watch detects an electrical field, it flashes a bright light and gives off a series of beeping sounds to alert the worker of the presence of an energized wire nearby.

Don Dohr, team lead in business development for HD Electric, says his company developed V-Watch about 10 years ago — in concert with Ameren — after a lineman was killed when coming in contact with a downed but live line.

Today, many utilities are adopting PVDs in daily use, Dohr says. Users find them particularly helpful during storm-restoration activities or on any work task in which the elements or a lack of daylight interfere with the human ability to see or otherwise detect dangerous lines. The V-Watch device is always on once the lanyard pouch is opened , and it remains on until the device is zippered back into its shielded pouch.

Use and acceptance of V-Watch usually spreads when one person wears one, and others see it and want one for their own safety and protection.