On the eve of school holidays, as part of a package of measures implemented by Smolenskenergo to prevent cases of electrical injuries to third parties, including the protection of children, unscheduled inspections of electrical installations, power lines, other power equipment in the premises and near the children's summer camps, recreational and educational centres have been started. Within a month before the summer holiday the power engineers will conduct inspections of electric grid facilities for compliance with the requirements of the design, serviceable condition of doors, locks, fences, guards, grounding devices, check the condition of equipment names, the presence of warning posters (signs), the availability of mechanical locks on the doors, wickets and gates. Identified defects that threaten life and health will be eliminated immediately.
Specialists of production control and safety together with chiefs of Distribution Zones also check the power equipment, located near mass gathering of children and cultural and recreational facilities. One of such inspections was conducted by a safety engineer of production control and safety Elena Babyak and Chief of Shumyachsky Distribution Zone Alexey Bondarev. They checked 7 transformer units and outgoing from them 0.4 kV overhead lines. The check revealed minor defects that are not life and health threatening, which will be eliminated before the summer holidays.
The power engineers will visit many children's camps again in the summer, but already to conduct informing lessons and talks about the dangers of electricity, during which they will explain that it is forbidden to climb a pole, open the locks and enter transformer substations, it is prohibited to play under overhead lines and throw objects onto wires, and it is mortally dangerous to approach a broken wire an unallowable distance.
Smolenskenergo’s experts believe that strengthening preventive work from the power engineers in anticipation of the summer holidays is a time period when children can stay without adult supervision, will prevent them from reckless behaviour, and will help preserve not only the health by their lives.