Increase your lightning safety when working outdoors with proper planning and safe practices!
OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, www.osha.gov) in collaboration with NOAA (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, www.noaa.gov) publish a fact sheet “Lightning Safety When Working Outdoors,” for outdoor workers, including workers in the construction industry and built environment. OSHA and NOAA warn that “lightning strikes can severely injure or kill workers whose jobs involve working outdoors.” Regrettably, organizations in the construction industry and built environment from time to time neglect the occupational hazards and safety threats posed by lightning strikes, and endanger the lives of outdoor workers in the field.
In order to minimize workplace hazards of lightning strikes in the construction industry and built environment, OSHA and NOAA affirm that all operating personnel, from project managers to field engineers to work crews, must understand the following three aspects about lightning:
- Lightning risks
- Lightning characteristics
- Lightning precautions
As a general best practice, if thunderstorms and lightning strikes are approaching, do not begin any task that you cannot stop quickly!
Lightning can strike outside of a rain event area, and from time to time, up to ten miles from the nearest rain event area. In many cases, lightning strike victims either fail to react promptly to real-time, hyper-local lightning strike detection alerts, or return back outdoors before the storm safely passes. As a general best practice in construction industry and built environment, if thunderstorms and lightning strikes are approaching your jobsite, do not begin any task that you cannot stop quickly. OSHA and NOAA highlight how “…proper planning and safe practices can easily increase your lightning safety when working outdoors…” in the construction industry and built environment.
More in the next blog post about lightning hazards and lightning safety for the construction industry and built environment…
(Source: https://www.weather.gov/media/owlie/OSHA_FS-3863_Lightning_Safety_05-2016.pdf)
Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, WeatherBuild® offers a suite of decision support solutions that empower contractors, owners and operators to improve situational awareness and make better-informed decisions about weather events, schedule impacts and probable outcomes.
Increase productivity. Enhance safety. Manage risk.™
Download WeatherBuild Mobile on the App Store and rate us 5 stars!
© 2018 Weather Build, Inc. All rights reserved. “WeatherBuild®”, “Weather Controls®”, and “Decision Support Solutions for the Construction Industry and Built Environment®” are registered trademarks of Weather Build, Inc. The WeatherBuild “W” logo and app icon, “WeatherBuild Solutions™”, “WeatherBuild Notify™”, “WeatherBuild History™”, “WeatherBuild Risk™”, “WeatherBuild Enterprise™”, “WeatherBuild API™”, and “Increase productivity. Enhance safety. Manage risk.™” are trademarks of Weather Build, Inc.