from the Line Crew

Cody Eischens and Trevor Michienzi recently gave some safety tips from the line department.  Please read what they had to tell us.

Slow down and move over!  Please, this is our office of sorts.  We are working around the trucks with limited visibility and they are fairly loud.  We can’t hear you coming our way and for our safety and yours, please slow down and move over when you see our trucks working.  This is Minnesota law.

• When traveling on a road with two or more lanes, drivers must keep over one full lane away from stopped emergency vehicles with flashing lights activated — ambulance, fire, law enforcement, maintenance, construction vehicles and tow trucks.

• Reduce speed if unable to safely move over a lane.

• Failing to take these actions endangers personnel who provide critical and life-saving services. Fines can exceed $100.

Again we see requests in the paper not to touch down power lines.  We urge you not to mess around with the power lines.  We have heard of people thinking using a stick will protect them while moving the wire, it won’t.  We test, ground, and use personal protective gear when we handle the dangerous equipment.  We have seen wires moved, rolled up, and messed with including removing trees from hanging lines.  This is dangerous for you and us, we don’t want to show up to an outage and find you hurt or worse.  Please respect the lines that we care for.  Please stay back at least 50’ from downed lines or equipment.

Another great tip is to keep the area below the power lines clear.  This is the right of way, when there is stuff parked or blocking us from getting to the lines it makes restoring outages less safe and take longer.  Please keep the right of way clear.