ILLINOIS COMMENTARY

Molly Hall

New Web site shows how to save your life

When I read of the young husband and father, tragically electrocuted as he adjusted his TV antenna the previous night, I thought of the Central Illinois family he left behind. My own father died of natural causes when I was two. I thought of the children who would grow up without their father, the wife who would go on without her husband, other family members and friends who would mourn his loss.

And how unbearable it must be to know his sudden death was completely avoidable.

Hundreds of people are killed and thousands injured each year in electrical accidents. We can change that reality.

Nearly all electrical accidents can be prevented. That powerful philosophy has created and now guides Illinois' new electrical safety awareness program.

Safe Electricity was launched in May 2001 as a joint safety effort of nearly three dozen organizations including Illinois electric cooperatives, investor-owned electric utilities, the Illinois Energy Association and University of Illinois, led by the Illinois Electric Council (IEC), a nonprofit electric industry forum.

A group of dedicated volunteers from these organizations had gathered just a few months earlier to explore the potential for greatly expanding accident prevention efforts with a comprehensive statewide approach. The result: the massive outreach effort called Safe Electricity, the only program of its kind in the country.

Radio and television public service announcements distributed statewide highlight electrical hazards, provide important safety information and direct the listener or viewer to the comprehensive Web site www.SafeElectricity.org for more information.

SafeElectricity.org is a virtual warehouse of safety information for children and adults, farmers, contractors, business people, homeowners, teachers, or anyone who has questions or needs to know about electrical safety. And that's just about everyone.

The user-friendly Web site is being continually updated and expanded. New items this spring include interactive safety games and activities for children, and additional teacher resources such as lesson plans and classroom experiments.

We know that information and awareness create life-saving attitudes and action.

Do you know why you shouldn't talk on the phone during a thunderstorm? Claire Simons learned why when lightening struck a tree outside her vacation home. The charge went down the tree and through a copper wire into the house. The telephone, as she put it, "was blown to smithereens." Now, no one in that family touches the phone during an electrical storm.

But learning from experience can be deadly. Farm workers are killed each year when tall equipment touches overhead power lines. Aluminum ladders and antennas touching overhead lines remain a significant cause of residential electrocutions. Accidents involving pools and electricity happen every year.

Arming people with information is a much better way to help them know the right steps to take.

Quad Cities television reporter Ken Price knows this well. He covered a live power line demonstration at an area school last spring and in his story, highlighted the proper action to take if a power line falls across your vehicle. A couple days later, Misty Wilson of Cambridge was driving her two daughters to school when the tall tractor in front of her snagged several overhead power lines, bringing one down across her van.

Wilson calmly told her children not to panic - she had seen Price's story and knew to stay in the vehicle until power to the line was shut off. Twenty minutes later, she and her children got out of the van safely.

This is the essence of Safe Electricity — saving lives and keeping people from getting hurt. If we can help someone to know what to do in an emergency, if we can help children to stay away from substations and electrical equipment, if we can help people to know the warning signs of electrical problems in the home, we can prevent accidents, fires, injuries and deaths.

Please visit www.SafeElectricity.org. Learning and understanding electrical safety rules and situations is a valuable investment of time for all of us.

Molly Hall is the Director of Safe Electricity. A veteran broadcast news journalist, she worked in state government and for Illinois Power. E-mail: molly-hall@SafeElectncity.org.

4 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING | www.aiec.org