What If Lightning Does Strike Literally, Are You Prepared?

Facilities are usual away from the major cities in the country of the respective business. It just doesn’t make sense to have a plant that is really close to the traffic jams and small highways so that freight, trucks and employees have a hard time just getting to it. So you can imagine then that the facility is a little exposed to the elements. In fact, a lot because that’s one of the main priorities of any factory building company and indeed the responsibility of the owner. As the business owner you’re trying to make sure you not only have the space to create and build you products using large and heavy machinery but have immediate access to the ports, highways, bridges and tunnels. This means you’ll be closer to the countryside and thus, you’ll experience some phenomenon that other businesses might not. This can be terrifying hurricanes that are ripping through your property, it can also be floods that put your warehouse and powerlines at risk. However, the most overlooked is the a lightning strike. It's the least common out of the natural disaster that affect facilities but that does not excuse to not be prepared for it
Section layout and precautions
Your facility should already be sectioned or rather split up into different areas. This is so there is much less confusion of what’s going on. You simply wouldn’t want your end assembly line to be part of your beginning assembly line as there need to be checks in the middle, different points at which materials and processes are injected and inspected etc. No matter how many sections you have they should preferably all have their own safety precautions. For example where you are welding metals, there could be a gas leak that affects the tools and also a danger to the employees. Therefore this section would have gas leak detectors, codes of conducts when this is spotted by employees and they will know how to react such as evacuating or stopping work etc.
For a lightning strike, each section should have it's own precautions too. First of all, every section of the facility is of course hooked up to the main power source or supply that comes into the facility from the outside power lines. However, each section should also have it's own power center. This is so your facility can shut down power to one side or limit it, while keeping all the other sections running normally. For this to be possible, you need fuse boxes fitted for every section as well as wiring to separate the power entering it from the main power supply i.e. the Power center. If lightning does strike, one fuse box isn’t controlling everything for your facility and thus you can split the burden up into many fractions limiting possible damage.
Form a relationship
When lightning strikes you will need to contact a professional company that can send out their worker to come take care of your facility. There are a range of things that can happen when lightning strikes a building that has many sensitive and powerful technologies inside it. Firstly the roof if most than likely going to be damaged physically and there may need to be repairs done to a hole or patch up a burn area. However, there is so much electricity in the building and all it's port to power, that it could cause the power lines to explode and snap. If electricity comes to your facility through a series of wires in an underground pipe, you may need to check for damage to the entrance.
Regardless of any damage, you need to call out an emergency electrician and preferably from a company that specializes in this kind of thing. They will be industrial electricians that deal with heavy-duty wires and structures that are only found in facilities. They have more than 40 years of experience under their belt, and work with one specific goal in mind. Getting your business up and running once again after a lightning strike is of the utmost importance and time is of the essence. Even if power is restored by itself, you should always have an industrial electrician come and take a look around so there are no safety hazards causes by the strike.
 
Rapid first aid
There’s no real way to determine if or when your facility will be struck by lightning. You can’t stop working just because there is thunder, rain and dark clouds over your building or if there are reports of lightning strikes in the area in the weather reports. It's very rare for lightning to strike a facility so there’s no way you should try to combat such a random event by stopping work. However, you should inform all your employees that work in the facility that this is a possibility. When the discussions are had in meetings, the key point for workers is to react to any injuries they or their fellow colleagues sustain in a strike.
Cardiac arrest and the sudden impact of senses being immobilized is very common to lightning strikes. You can become temporarily or permanently blind, have a loss of hearing, taste and feeling in your limbs and body. Every facility should have a pair of safety gloves that are not going to conduct electricity, heat or corrode quickly due to harmful chemicals. These gloves should be close by and ready to use by anyone. They should be used to give CPR or pump someone’s chest in order to restart the heart and breathe for them in case they are having a heart attack. Your employees can go through a safety program by hiring such professionals to come and talk to them at work. They’ll learn the proper ways of touching a body that may be electrically charged and also look for signs of injury when a lightning strike happens.
It may never happen, but no business ever succeeded by not planning for the rare occasions that may hurt the chances of attaining their goals. Lightning strikes on facilities are no joke, they can seriously hamper your production output and potentially seriously harm your employees. So plan for it like it will happen sometime in the future.