As Balloon Outages Soar, SCE Urges Responsible Celebrations of Dads, Grads and Newlyweds
June 15 2015 - 4:00PM
Business Wire
Like bad weather, metallic balloons are a leading cause of power
outages.
Unlike bad weather, however, there’s an easy and cheap solution
to the outages caused by stray balloons.
Southern California Edison (SCE) is on a record pace for balloon
outages with 390 even before the traditionally worst month of June
and its celebrations of Father’s Day, graduations and the
ever-popular weddings. SCE urges its customers to always keep the
balloons tied to a weight, as required by California
law, and to never release them
outdoors.
“Worse than outages, floating metallic balloons can pose a major
safety threat to people when the contact is violent enough to bring
down power lines,” said Don Neal, SCE director of Corporate
Environmental, Health and Safety. “The best way to avoid this and
property damage is by keeping them indoors or tied to a
weight.”
The weights are as crucial as ever as SCE has seen all-time
highs this year for balloon outages in March (89), April (86) and
May (122) on its way to a 50 percent increase over this point last
year. Additionally, June has long been the worst month for the
outages, leading all months in four of the past five years. Last
year, SCE experienced 21 percent — or 137 of 656 — of its balloons
outages in June. Only May (93) was close.
SCE recommends some other tips for safely handling metallic
balloons:
- Do not attempt to retrieve a balloon —
or any foreign object — tangled in power lines. Instead, call SCE
at 800-611-1911 and report the problem.
- Never tie a metallic balloon to a
child’s wrist. If the balloon comes into contact with electricity,
it will travel through the balloon and into the child, possibly
causing serious injury or even death.
- Never attach streamers to any balloon —
latex or metallic.
- When done with them, puncture the
balloons or cut the knot to keep them from floating away.
- If you see a downed line or dangling
wire — even if it appears not to be live — don’t touch or approach
it and call 911 immediately.
More on metallic balloon safety can be found at
on.sce.com/staysafe. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California
Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a
population of nearly 14 million via 5 million customer accounts in
a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and
Southern California.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150615006329/en/
Southern California EdisonMedia Contact:Paul Netter, (626)
302-2255
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