Lightning Protection: Hazard Alert

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Center to Protect Workers' Rights
• Description:
  Lightning kills about 80 people in the U.S. each year and injures hundreds. Among construction workers, laborers, machine operators, engineers, roofers, and pipefitters have been struck by lightning most often on the job. Your chances of getting hit by lightning are greatest in Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Wyoming. In most places, lightning hits most often in late afternoon in spring and summer. But lightning can hit anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lightning can hit the same place many times too. Lightning can stop your heart and kill you. But you can also get burns, nervous system damage, and other health problems. Some of these you may not notice until months after a lightning strike. Protect Yourself - When to act: If you hear thunder and see lightning, act right away, especially if you count 30 seconds or less between the thunder and lightning. If the thunder gets louder or you see the lightning more often, the storm is getting closer. (Sometimes lightning will strike out of a sunny sky 10 miles or more from a storm.) Lightning hits tall things, metal, and water, or a person standing on open ground or a roof. Your worksite should have a plan for what to do in a lightning storm. (OSHA does not allow work on or from scaffolds in storms, in some cases.) [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Atmosphere Burns Construction Industry Construction Materials Disaster Planning Electricity Emergencies Mortality Nervous System Diseases Occupational Health Safety Safety Management Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Accident-prevention Atmospheric-pressure Climatic-conditions Climatic-effects Climatic-factors Construction Construction-equipment Construction-industry Construction-materials Construction-workers Disaster-planning Electrical-charge Electrical-conductivity Electrical-fields Electrical-properties Emergency-response Hazards Injuries Injury-prevention Mortality-data Nervous-system-disorders Outdoors Safety-education Safety-measures Safety-practices Work-environment Work-practices Worker-health

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• Series:
  CPWR - Center for Construction Research and Training Publications
• Publisher:
  The Center to Protect Workers' Rights
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  2 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20039467
• Citation:
  Silver Spring, MD: The Center to Protect Workers' Rights, 2004 Oct; :1-2
• Contact Point Address:
  Building and Construction Trades Dept., AFL-CIO: CPWR, Suite 1000, 8484 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2005
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  The Center to Protect Workers' Rights
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19990930
• Source Full Name:
  Lightning protection: hazard alert
• End Date:
  20050630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7166fce9c8cf11cbf9729d0c8d79ba77105b5d99317c9d4edcc1f63b47192c460ecf5039f62fba5d0f1c81893f74246fb9b20637347a0e7326328882631197c9
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/213086/cdc_213086_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 30.58 KB ]