Today's blog post is the second of two recent examples of our Job Done Right safety culture focused on Team Situational Awareness and recognizing Weak Signals.
A three-man manual crew, who often remove dangerous and hazardous trees, were working on a single-phase that runs through the backcountry of northern Ohio. The crew had successfully felled numerous trees along the single phase of this backcountry ROW when they came upon another ash tree to be removed.
The crew recognized the large growth of mushrooms and the heavy lean it had toward the primary wire.
The crew decided it would be best to get a second opinion from their GF. The crew contacted their GF and he inspected the tree. Together they decided the tree was too fragile to use any kind of mechanical leverage to pull the tree back away from the line, as most likely the ash tree would break in an unintended area, under the kind of load needed to pull it away from the wire. The GF sought a third opinion from the Safety Specialist. We looked at the tree and determined that the ash tree was in heavy decline.
We determined that an off-road lift would be our only option for removing this tree. The area is still wet from the heavy rain in the hilly area and the GF has advised the utility that this tree can't be removed safely, without the use of an off-road bucket. This job site will be revisited when the ground conditions dry up.
