Linemen and vegetation management workers are considered essential critical infrastructure workers via a government mandate.
Nationwide, cities and counties are issuing mandatory stay-at-home orders for Americans, but what about those workers in the vegetation management and utility industry who can't simply work from home?
On March 16, President Trump issued the updated Coronavirus Guidance for America. In turn, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identified those workers in critical infrastructure industries who are essential to continued infrastructure viability. For the complete list from the CISA click here.
Workers who maintain, ensure, or restore the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power, including call centers, utility workers, reliability engineers and fleet maintenance technicians
Workers needed for safe and secure operations at nuclear generation
Workers at generation, transmission and electric blackstart facilities
Workers at Reliability Coordinator (RC), Balancing Authorities (BA), and primary and backup Control Centers (CC), including but not limited to independent system operators, regional transmission organizations, and balancing authorities
Mutual assistance personnel
IT and OT technology staff – for EMS (Energy Management Systems) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, and utility data centers; Cybersecurity engineers; cybersecurity risk management
Vegetation management crews and traffic workers who support
Environmental remediation/monitoring technicians
Instrumentation, protection, and control technicians
How are you protecting your vegetation management crews and line workers as they continue to work in the field? Email Field Editor Amy Fischbach with your stories and photos.
Voice your opinion!
To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of T&D World, create an account today!
