Wire-walkers walk the line on safety
Friday, September 27, 2013
Summer in
the Bluegrass was beautiful this year with many blue sky days. But when Mother
Nature rained downed, she made her presence known. The July 10th and Labor Day
weekend storms brought down several power lines in our service area. In both
instances, we deployed our Public Safety Response Team (PSRT).
“The PSRT is
activated when more downed wires are being called in than the DCC (the
Distribution Control Center ) has line crew resources available to respond to
in a timely manner,” said John Ashton, group leader of Resource Management and
Project Scheduling for LG&E and KU. “The DCC will call a PSRT lead and
request the team to be activated. The lead will then call in the on-call PSRT
dispatch team and a team of ‘wire walkers.’ These teams will work as long as
necessary to cover all wire-down calls to support the DCC.”
Currently,
365 employees and 106 resident contractors from across the service territory
serve on the PSRT. Of those, 79 are dispatchers who are “on call” every 10
weeks for two consecutive weeks.
Additional
team members include wire-walkers, who are assigned to wire-down events to
determine if wires are energized and to rope off caution areas. When they are
called to respond to additional downed wire calls, wire-sitters relieve them by
actually staying at the site of downed lines to protect the public from harm
until a line repair crew arrives to restore service.
If you see
downed power line, do not touch it. Please report it to us at 502-589-1444.
Emergency Response Team (ERTs)
In addition
to PSRT, we have Emergency Response Teams (ERTs). This team performs high-angle
and confined space rescues and assists with fire and hazmat issues.
 |
Mill Creek
ERTs Greg Parrish and Joey Taylor train
for high-angle rope rescue. The group conducts and attends monthly training sessions as part of their ERT responsibilities. |
• Cane Run Generating Station — Twenty
employees serve on Cane Run’s ERT, with 11 of those joining the “tech team” who
are trained in high-angle rescue, confined-space rescue and hazardous materials
(hazmat) handling for on-site chemicals. Two employees serve as emergency
medical technicians (EMTs), three as first responders, and the remainder are
trained in first aid and CPR.
• E.W. Brown Generating Station — Brown
has 17 EMT first responders and 36 employees qualified to perform confined-space
rescues. First responders follow state guidelines for their training, and
confined-space rescuers attend a three-day class for their initial training and
eight hours of refresher courses each year.
• Ghent Generating Station — The Ghent
ERT responds to medical, hazmat and confined-space emergencies.
• Green River Generating Station —
Several employees serve as first-responders and members of the confined-space
rescue team.
• Mill Creek Generating Station — The
plant’s ERT includes 31 team members, who cover everything from firefighting,
medical emergencies, hazmat situations and rescue. Approximately 10 members of
the team are part of the Technical Rescue Team, which covers everything from
confined-space rescue and high-angle rope rescue. Members of the team could be
called if an individual were stuck in a boiler, elevator, feeder, etc.
The ERT
conducts and attends monthly training sessions, which consist of classroom
sessions, drills and live fire training at the Jefferson County Burn Building.
Some additional examples of training include hazmat, EMT certifications, first
response, CPR and technical rescue.
• Trimble County Generating Station —
The plant currently has 42 ERT members. The group trains annually on the required
hazmat and confined-space rescue procedures. The mandatory training requires
all members to have completed 40 training hours necessary for certification of
each standard. The group also meets all National Fire Protection Association
certification standards for firefighting, emergency medical and rescue. Trimble
County Station has a fully operational fire pumper-truck, state-certified
ambulance and apparatus for response and rescue.
