How We Keep Our Crews and Customers Safe During Power Restoration and Construction

At Seattle City Light, we're committed to serving our communities with reliable power while keeping safety at the forefront of all we do. Our hardworking crews often operate in your neighborhood to restore power, perform maintenance, and upgrade infrastructure. Here's how to stay safe around our worksites and equipment.

How we prioritize safety when restoring power.

When an outage occurs, our crews work to bring back power as soon as possible. But restoring power isn't as simple as flipping a switch.

Staying safe means we often need to keep the power off at the worksite and around damaged equipment. To fix an issue, we sometimes need new equipment, like cables and transformers. It takes time to retrieve these, which delays the restoration. But putting safety first is always worth the wait.

Here's how we prioritize safety when restoring power:

1. Before work begins, our crews identify potential hazards. This includes checking for downed power lines, damaged equipment, and other safety risks.
2. To prevent accidents, our crews isolate the affected areas from the main grid. This ensures that our crews can work without the risk of unexpected electrical surges.
3. Our crews are equipped with personal protection equipment (PPE), including insulated gloves, hard hats, and flame-resistant clothing. This gear is crucial for protecting them from electrical hazards.
4. In case of emergencies, our crews are trained to respond swiftly and effectively. They carry first-aid kits and are familiar with emergency procedures to handle unexpected incidents.

How our construction procedures work.

Our crews frequently work to maintain equipment or install new electric service. Our teams take steps to ensure both crew and customer safety during construction.

Here's what you can expect:

• Before beginning, our crews assess the location, which may sometimes be your property.
• They disconnect power at the worksite, including any damaged equipment that could pose a risk.
• Construction projects can involve requests for new equipment and materials, which take time to arrive.
• Worksites are clearly marked with signs, traffic cones, and boundary tape. These boundaries are there for your protection, so please observe them.

What you can do to stay safe.

Your safety is as much our concern as it is yours. Here's how you can help:

• Keep a respectful distance from our worksites and crew members. Our crews handle live electrical equipment, which is dangerous without proper safety gear.
• If you need to approach a crew member, please wait until they come to you.
• If you need to verify the identity of a crew member on your property, please ask for their utility identification. Call 911 if they refuse to show their ID.

We often use the right-of-way for its transmission and distribution facilities. This generally includes the unpaved area between the sidewalk and the street. The right-of-way is managed and regulated by Seattle and other local cities, who we coordinate with.

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Here's how to stay safe in the right-of-way:

• Before you begin any digging project, call 811 or (800) 424-5555 to locate underground electrical lines and other utilities.
• Avoid power lines and anything touching them. If a power line falls, stay at least 30 feet away.
• Do not fly drones near power lines.
• Remember, it's unsafe to remove items from a power line, such as tree limbs or kites.
• If you have questions about overgrown vegetation near power lines, contact our Vegetation Management and Power Line Clearance team at (206) 386-1733, Monday-Friday, between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

We value your cooperation as we work to keep our cities energized and safe. Stay safe and stay informed!

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