MAY 2016

Brian Sharp believes in teaching the power of electric safety

Murfreesboro Electric Department believes that learning how to be safe with electricity is important for all ages. That’s why MED was excited to attend the Bellwood Discovery School’s Safety Fair on March 24.

The event featured booths from organizations across the City of Murfreesboro, including police, fire and ambulance services. Each gave a brief presentation as students of all ages went around and visited the booths.

Brian Sharp, MED’s assistant safety director, has been teaching the importance of electric safety through various demonstrations for years as a lineman before taking his current position.

“I started doing demos with the utility truck when my kids were in school,” he says. “My wife worked for the school, and I would do the demonstration for their class. Later I started doing it at all the schools when they would have career day, and now it has continued in this position.”

Sharp’s presentation at the safety fair was abbreviated so students would have time to make it to every booth, but it still covered important subjects like being safe around guy-wires, understanding what happens to downed power lines during a storm, and learning why everyone should stay away from a car that is touching a power line.

He was even able to use a demonstration board with a high-voltage, low-current transformer to teach kids some basic electricity

concepts, like what happens when the power goes off and why a squirrel will get shocked by touching a transformer or power line but a bird won’t.

On other occasions, Sharp also has the opportunity to explain how he began working for the electric department, how much training it takes to do his job, and how long he has worked to get where he is.

“Sharing that experience really goes a long way to making a career in the electric industry attractive, especially for some of the older kids who might be thinking about what they want to do after school,” says Amy Byers, MED’s director of marketing, who also attended the fair.

In the future, Sharp is looking forward to being able to bring even

more to his presentation, as he and four other MED employees were recently certified to operate an Arc Demo Safety Trailer, a 26-foot trailer with a three-phase line built on it. The trailer makes it possible to draw a big electric arc that shows just how dangerous downed lines can be.

“We have a lot of good linemen here, and they’ve built a good system. They built our lines in the safest way they know how and the safest way the industry knows how,” Sharp says. “But nature has a way of making everything we build temporary. Things are going to happen. Cars are going to hit poles; lightning’s going to strike our lines and knock something down. That’s when it’s unsafe, and both kids and adults need to know what to do.”

Sharp demonstrates the basics of electric power and safety to a group of students at the Bellwood Discovery School.

BIRDS ON A WIRE: Why birds can touch power lines but you can’t

Birds may be able to fly, but their ability to sit on power lines without getting zapped is nothing unique to them. It’s all about the connections they make with electricity, and more importantly the ones they don’t make.

When electricity flows from one object to another, it moves from a place of high electric potential, like a live power line, to one of low electric potential, like the ground.

So when a bird sits with both feet on the same wire, the electric potential is the same, and electricity has no motivation to travel through its body. However, if a bird were to sit with each foot on a different wire, or one foot on a live wire and the other on a pole that touches the ground, it would be in trouble.

The same is true for people. Since we are almost always touching the ground, making contact with a power line would cause electricity to pass through our bodies to get to the low electric potential of the ground. That’s why it’s never safe to touch a power line without wearing protective equipment.

TO REPORT APOWER OUTAGE:615-893-5515

PHONE: 615-893-5514

EMAIL: customerservice@murfreesboroelectric.com

MAIL: PO Box 9 • Murfreesboro, TN 37133-0009

WALK-IN/DRIVE-THRU: 205 North Walnut Street, Murfreesboro, TN

ONLINE: www.MurfreesboroElectric.com

FACEBOOK: Search “Murfreesboro Electric Department”

TWITTER: @mboroelectric

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A WINNING RECORD

At MED, we’re dedicated to making sure our customers are educated on safe habits around electricity. But it’s even more important that our employees, who work with electricity every day, have the equipment and training they need to do their job without risking injury.

May is National Electric Safety Month, which means utilities across the country are taking extra care to ensure employees understand the latest safety standards. But at MED, safety is a focus every day. In fact, this month marks more than 26 months without an accident that has caused an MED employee to miss time.

That record is in large part thanks to monthly training from Job Training and Safety (JT&S) Services, which keeps employees up-to-date on the latest rules and regulations in the electric utility industry. Outside employees attend training each month to reiterate the importance of things like ladder safety, personal protective equipment and proper grounding, while all employees

attend four to five meetings each year for OSHA mandated training for emergency action plans.

Of course, the best training is wasted if everyone isn’t personally dedicated to making safety a priority. MED employees show up to work every day intent on approaching their job with the care it demands.

“Each person has a commitment that everybody will go home every evening the same way they came to work,” says Brian Sharp, assistant safety director. “That’s our goal each day, and ultimately that’s what leads to a strong safety record like the one MED has.”

MED serves over 55,000 homes and businesses along hundreds of miles of power line. Sometimes, those lines come into contact with tree limbs, causing outages that are not only inconvenient, but also costly. Each year, power outages do an estimated $80 billion of damage to the U.S. economy, and many are caused by trees growing too close to power lines.

To keep those outages to a minimum, MED started the Trimming Reduces Electrical Emergencies (TREE) program in 2005, which keeps heavy winds and snow from causing as much damage to lines as they might otherwise.

MED partners with Asplundh Tree Expert Company, a contractor and nationally recognized Professional Arboricultural Company, to trim trees within OSHA safety standards using American National Standards Institute pruning techniques.

Trees near power lines are pruned on a regular three- or four-year cycle. If you see a tree making contact with a power line, please lets us know by calling 615-893-5514 or by emailing dispatch@medtn.com.

Ever wanted to set a Guinness World Record? July 7 at Murfreesboro’s Downtown Square is your chance!

To kick off this year’s Uncle Dave Macon Days festivities, Marcia Campbell of the Grand Ole Opry Dancers and 650 AM WSM radio in Nashville will lead a group as they attempt the world’s largest square dance at 6 p.m. The dance will be accompanied by the high-energy

sounds of the Hog Slop String Band, “one of the finest square dance bands on the planet,” according to Nashville Scene.

The square dance is the official dance of the State of Tennessee, but the current record for the world’s largest square dance is held in Illinois. Come out to this free event to help Uncle Dave Macon Days claim the record for Tennessee, as

the celebration returns to the public square where it first started nearly 40 years ago.

There will be a community-wide square dance rehearsal on Sunday, May 15, at 2 p.m. at the Rutherford County Courthouse Inner Circle. Anyone who wants to participate in the record attempt, either as a dancer or volunteer, should attend.

Dare to be square, square dance on the Square!

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TREE program keeps the lights on