Information Center > Power Safety Tips

Tips When You Fly a Kite!

• Do fly kites in clear sunny weather, not storms.
• DO make your kite from paper, wood, plastic, nylon or fabric, making sure there are no metal parts on your kite.
• DO NOT climb a power pole or tree to get a kite tangled in overhead power lines.
• DO call Umatilla Electric Cooperative to take down a kite that is touching a power line.
• DO check wind direction before flying your kite to avoid hazards; keep control of your kite by using a reasonable length of string.
• DO have fun flying your kite safely!

Electrical Storms

The lazy, hazy, hot days of summer provide the right atmosphere for sudden thunder and lightning storms. Lightning is a form of static electricity and like other forms of electricity, lightning looks for a path to the ground. It will use the best conductor available, including water, a tree, a kite string, or a person.

Electricity always tries to get to the ground. It follows the shortest and easiest path it can. Metal materials such as copper and aluminum, things that are wet and anything with water in it, including people and wood, are good conductors of electricity. Tree sap, with its high water content, is an excellent conductor of electricity.

Listed are some safe practices to ensure your safety during electrical storms:

• stay indoors
• stay away from open doors and windows, metal pipes, sinks and plug-in electrical appliances
• do not take laundry off the clothesline
• do not work on fences, telephone lines, power lines, pipelines or metal buildings
• do not use metal objects, such as fishing rods and golf clubs. Golfers wearing metal cleated shoes are particularly good lightning rods
• stop tractor work, especially when the tractor is pulling metal equipment and get off the tractor
• get out of the water and off small boats
• stay in the car if you are traveling. Automobiles offer excellent lightning protection
• when there is no shelter, avoid the highest object in the area. If only isolated trees are nearby, the best protection is to crouch in the open, keeping twice as far away from isolated trees as the trees are high
• avoid hilltops, open spaces, wire fences, metal clotheslines, and any high objects which may conduct electricity