By Zac Bryant, Panhandle Rural Electric Membership Association general manager

    Safety is always the top priority from your local utility protecting and informing the public. You have likely heard the message come over the local radio or tv stations. These messages range from looking up when near overhead lines, calling in locates when digging, or staying clear of down lines and poles. These messages are commonly shared to heighten awareness to the public and some tips of what to do if a situation occurs. Safe practices and communicating outages and damage to your local utility helps protect the public, prevent damage, and restore power. 
    The lineman and field techs start their day with a safety brief “tailgate” to identify hazards and go over the job scope. This is a group collaboration to share ideas, identify the obvious hazards, and those latent hazards. This is a time to identify energy sources, everyone’s task, and truck location. Each employee has extensive training in multiple areas including switching, hot-work, pole top and bucket rescue, first aid, and CPR. Every job includes what could happen and what would be done if there was severe weather, medical emergency, or unplanned event in the job. This is a time to Plan, Prevent, and Prepare. 
    Office safety is just as important as in the field. The employees constantly review the hazards and plan of where to go in case of severe weather, fires, medical emergencies, etc. The locations of exits, fire extinguishers, first aid kits and AEDs. The employees are trained annually in how to provide care in these situations. These safety briefs are important not only to the staff but to visitors so everyone is aware of the locations and practices. The office uses communication from phones, radios, truck locating to monitor the crews and their locations. This makes everyone accounted for, and to make sure they have returned to their work locations safely. Technology has greatly improved the capabilities to maintain constant communication.
    Since electricity came into much of Nebraska in the 1930’s, safety has dramatically improved. Practices and procedures have evolved, training has increased, and accidents and injuries have declined. Your local public power districts and electric cooperatives work together to share their safety success, near misses, and accidents/injuries so as a team we continue to strive to improve and prevent. The customers and your local utility work together today just like they did in the beginning to serve those existing customers and welcome the new. Safety is achieved when everyone works together. 
    Nebraska is the only state that is an all-public power state, meaning it is owned by the people right here and not by  investors. The board members are elected to represent the members. We invest back into the infrastructure to ensure a reliable system. The employees take pride in their work and safety. We support each other in times of storms and restoring power. It is our mission to provide a safe, reliable electrical service at an affordable price to those we serve.