Just in case...

I was watching The Weather Channel the other morning and the meteorologist was showing a graphic of a storm in the Atlantic that was 4000 miles long from north to south. Yes, 4000 miles. I'm not a diligent observer of weather patterns but a 4000 mile storm seemed kind of unusual to me. But who knows, maybe this kind of crap happens all the time. Maybe I got a little spooked by An Inconvenient Truth...Damn you Gore!

In any case, that hugegantic storm got me thinking about safety in the event that a power line was ever taken down by any kind of storm.

Chances are that the downed line is a distribution line. Typically, there will be roughly 13,000 Volts at that line. If you are not in a car, just stay away...far away. At that voltage, you don't need to touch the wire....it will come get you. To be completely safe, don't go within 30-40 ft.

Now, if you are in a car and the downed line is in your path, the first thing you should do is stay in your car. If your car is too close and you MUST get out, then you must adhere to this advice if you don' t want to become a piece of bacon.

If you must get out of your car, get out of the car with your feet TOGETHER. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!! Next, you must keep your feet together and hop until you are at least 30-40 ft away. Yes, you will look stupid, but physics doesn't care how dumb you look. Without getting technical, what you are doing is avoiding a difference in potential in the electricity. As the electricity moves away from its source it becomes weaker, thus different than where it started. By hopping with both feet together you will not have one foot in a high and one foot in a lower area of flux. All the electricity wants to do is find balance (and the path of least resistance). If you happen to have one foot in each of those two areas you can become the conductor for balance. NOT GOOD.

So now you know the SUGGESTED way to handle a F'ed up situation.

Hopefully, you'll never ever be anywhere close to something that can be so dangerous.