The percentages of being struck and killed by lightning in your lifetime are round 1 in 139,000. Which means you’re about 10 occasions extra prone to die from radiation or excessive temperatures than be killed by a lightning strike, in response to Injury Facts – an internet supply of preventable dying and harm statistics compiled by the Nationwide Security Council.
The Nationwide Lightning Security Council experiences that 11 folks had been killed by lightning final 12 months – the fewest recorded by the group because it started monitoring the statistic in 2006. (The Nationwide Climate Service locations the annual common from 1998 to 2018 at 43.)
Three of the deaths reported in 2021 occurred on the job: a 60-year-old development worker in Wisconsin, a 19-year-old roofer in Florida and a 19-year-old lifeguard in New Jersey.
Though fatalities are uncommon, the hazard is that lightning can strike with little or no warning. That’s why it may well’t be ignored or taken flippantly by employers or staff – notably those that spend time outdoor.
“The final time you wish to take into consideration doing one thing about lightning is when it’s truly taking place,” mentioned Kevin Beauregard, director of the occupational security and well being division of the North Carolina Division of Labor.
Out of doors staff ought to observe further warning throughout spring and summer season. “We wish to increase that consciousness as we get into the months the place these climate occasions are extra prevalent,” mentioned Kevin Cannon, senior director of security and well being companies on the Related Normal Contractors of America. “It’s about what it is advisable do to guard your self.”
Dangers and challenges
Occupations which have the very best threat of lightning strikes, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, embrace development and constructing upkeep, farming and area labor, heavy tools operation, logging, pipefitting or plumbing, telecommunications or energy utility area restore, and explosives dealing with/storage.
A direct strike isn’t the one threat to staff. If lightning strikes steel objects, reminiscent of pipes used for plumbing and reinforcements for concrete flooring and partitions, electrical energy can journey via them. A mean strike, in response to NWS, is round 300 million volts and about 30,000 amps. A family present is 120 volts and 15 amps.
“It’s one thing you’ll be able to considerably lower your possibilities of for those who take shelter,” Beauregard mentioned. NWS’s lightning security consciousness marketing campaign urges folks to go indoors “when thunder roars.”
Nonetheless, a major problem within the development trade is the quite a few settings staff could also be in when extreme climate strikes. “It’s a must to take a look at it from the totally different views of those that are performing work primarily outdoors, reminiscent of civil contractors versus those that are constructing contractors,” Cannon mentioned. “You could be, at occasions, working in a totally enclosed constructing, generally partially enclosed, generally simply framed.”
Many outside eventualities embrace working at top, not solely in development but in addition telecommunications, utilities and different industries.
“Say you’re up in a raised place – on a water tower, on high of a tower crane or scaffolding, or on a wind turbine,” Beauregard mentioned. “It’s going to take you time to get down.”
That’s particularly necessary as a result of lightning can strike as much as 10 miles from any rainfall, OSHA warns.
Put together to behave
OSHA’s normal on worker emergency motion plans (1926.35) – which covers escape procedures and routes, evacuation, and coaching of staff – applies to lightning.
“An employer can’t management if there’s going to be a lightning strike or not,” Beauregard mentioned. “However what they will management is ensuring their staff are correctly skilled they usually know what they need to do within the occasion of an approaching storm or in the event that they discover themselves in a storm.”
On a jobsite, educating staff about the place to go when the specter of lightning rises is crucial.
“That preparation begins with figuring out these kind of occasions in your emergency plan, coaching to it after which taking a look at your particular operations – outside vs. indoor,” Cannon mentioned.
Oregon OSHA, which operates as a State Plan, says employers can discover assets with their state program’s session companies to assist with minimizing, controlling or eliminating hazards reminiscent of lightning strikes.
Among the many key steps to remain protected, in response to federal OSHA, is checking climate experiences. “Previous to beginning the work, know what the climate goes to be like that day so you’ll be able to plan,” Beauregard mentioned
Employers and staff can use cellphone apps – such because the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate app – to trace climate situations. As well as, staff ought to put together by “understanding what the insurance policies and procedures entail and put that into motion,” Cannon mentioned.
What staff ought to know
Looking for shelter indoors is the popular motion to keep away from being struck by lightning. NOAA recommends doing so in a totally enclosed constructing with electrical wiring and plumbing, which might conduct electrical energy extra effectively than your physique.
If a constructing isn’t an possibility, a hard-topped steel automobile with its home windows rolled up generally is a appropriate shelter.
Don’t depart any shelter till half-hour after listening to the final sound of thunder.
Lightning is almost certainly to strike the tallest object in an space, so attempt to not be that tallest object.
Nonetheless, mendacity on the bottom isn’t advisable – NWS says mendacity flat “will increase your probability of being affected by a probably lethal floor present.” Equally, in 2008, the company stopped recommending folks crouch over as a result of “the crouch merely doesn’t present a major stage of safety.” As an alternative, use that point to maintain trying to find shelter.
Employees ought to avoid remoted timber, water, utility poles, hilltops, cellphone towers or giant tools. As an alternative, retreat to a low-lying space – a valley, a ditch or an space dense with smaller timber – if shelter isn’t obtainable.
These precautions might help keep away from potential severe accidents and dying.
“Take a look at the quantity of energy in a lightning strike,” Beauregard mentioned. “Should you get struck, likelihood is you’re going to have fairly severe long-lasting accidents.”
