Safety Message for April, 1999

During the recent storm where high winds and falling debris caused power outages affecting 250,000 people, did everyone find the carefully coordinated disaster notification effort by US WEST reassuring?

Maybe you didn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling due to the fact that there was a complete failure to follow the established plan, put in to place a year ago. Why did it fail?

The reasons for failure developed a long and not glorious list.

1. One cause was that many key supervisors were in meetings or classes and were not released to return to their crews. Even when the seriousness of the situation was finally realized, they lacked responsiveness to the situation.
2. Duty supervisors, with the exception of Steve Webb who worked diligently with yours truly to get notification paging started, were unfamiliar with the plan; or as in some cases were only concerned with re-establishing "customer service" no matter what the situation. This was a state wide problem, not just in our areas.
3. Per the directive of the director level managers, all employees in all departments were to have been covered on this procedural plan. Were they? In most cases, NO! YOU CAN'T TEACH WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW! So who enlightened the immediate supervisors? No one, but many never even bothered to read it themselves.
4. Engineering failed to establish prior contact with the electrical utility companies to "lock in" a grid area coordination and storm communication criteria. Without this effort no technician could be safely dispatched in to any areas.
5. Last but not least, the names and contact numbers of each crews' supervisor was so far out of date, they were useless, and these are to be updated quarterly.

All of the above and much more failed to materialize, which could have resulted in disaster to any number of employees. But, the utmost bothersome failure was that too many technicians after seeing the scope of the storm aftermath, had the attitude that we should charge into the fray no matter what the conditions.

Wouldn't you think that after being informed of the danger of the situation a spark of self preservation might have ignited in even the most determined individual? Not so, oh, high production artist.

Surprisingly far too many technicians felt that re-establishing service was more important than their well being. Their contention was that this is what we get the bucks to do. That is the type of attitude that causes at the least injuries and at the extreme, fatalities.

Let me familiarize everyone with our number one obligation-to keep ourselves out of harm's way. you need to:

• ¨ Request that your supervisor cover all members of your crew with the complete storm procedures plan. This should be done at a safety meeting before they get in to their production stats-they might save a life!
• ¨ Anytime there could be a probability of a storm caused power problem, call your supervisor or duty supervisor to establish what procedures are in affect.
• ¨ At no time during a storm or disaster situation that results in power down situations, do we begin our normal work routine until cleared to do so.
• ¨ Even after an area is cleared for entry, we must, I repeat, must constantly be on guard for any unreported danger and if one is encountered we need to clear the area and report it to supervision.

Not all dangers are wide spread in scope. Local power down or maintenance cable burning need to be LRAC or supervisor paged to the outside forces, but we have an obligation to "report" these situations to the proper entities to assure prompt action.

The State Safety Committee addresses the storm fiasco at our face to face on March 17th and have established a "core" committee to hammer out a state wide plan to be based on the best features of the plans presently in affect.

The success of any plan is dependent on its implementation, and US WEST has a horrendous track record in this area

All employees need to understand that their safety is number one-not the re-establishing or initial establishment of service to customers.

Denver has shown that they don't give a rip about you and your welfare in safety, health care or the quality of your family life. If you disagree, I have a bridge for you. If they truly cared, why does US WEST award new vehicles, not by need, but by production. You as employees have the right to a safe work environment and this is especially true during widespread storm or local power problems. Use common sense and question any situation that your "internal voice" tells you to avoid. This is your sixth sense alerting your survival instinct to "watch out'.

Have a safe day!
Dennis Garrett
Safety Chair, Local 7804

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