If you’re responsible for the safety of your employees, you should have extensive guidelines in place for bad weather. You should also take some measures yourself to ensure that everyone gets home without illness or injury. Here are just a few tips for keeping your workers safe during a storm.
OSHA prohibits work on cranes and scaffolds during an actual storm, but if the darkened sky isn’t pouring yet, you might be able to squeeze in a few more hours on that big construction project. You’ll want to protect your employees, however, with things like personal fall protection systems. You don’t want someone to get startled and slip during the first crack of thunder.
From ponchos to PVC boots, there are many ways to keep your employees from suffering the effects of wind, rain and mud. Just make sure that you’re buying goods that are suitable for work and not just leisure. Plastic ponchos might not hold up under physical exertion, and protective coverings without hoods won’t keep the rain from streaming into someone’s eyes. Visit a company like Ben’s Cleaner Sales and deck out your workers—especially if your business primarily works outdoors.
You might be familiar with wind screens as general, all-weather privacy items, but they can also live up to their name in a storm situation. Not only will they halt and redistribute heavy winds, but they can also stop dirt, leaves, twigs and trash from being flung at your workers. Injuries are much less likely with a barrier between your people and the storm.
Lightning kills anywhere from 20–40 people per year in the United States alone, so if your employees spend a lot of time outdoors, they should be trained in proper lightning response protocol. This includes halting work, seeking shelter, avoiding metal structures and identifying when the risk window has passed. You might also want to give them a crash course in using the NOAA for weather alerts.
Flooding is always a concern when there are heavy rains, and water levels don’t have to be extreme to be dangerous. Slips and falls are more common when the ground is slick, and flooded areas can disguise all kinds of hazards like sinkholes, drop-offs, sharp objects and uncovered manholes. If you can’t see the ground beneath the water, tell your employees not to walk through it.
These are just a few things to keep in mind when updating the outdoor safety guidelines of your workplace. No matter what your industry, it’s important that your employees know what to do when they feel those first few tell-tale drops from the sky.
Dixie Somers is a freelance writer and blogger for business, home, and family niches. Dixie lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and is the proud mother of three beautiful girls and wife to a wonderful husband.