Marshallville, GA |
Farmers deal with enough pressure every season — rising costs, unpredictable weather, the constant push to get the job done and stay profitable. But amid all of that, one important hazard can easily be overlooked. Brad Knowles, Manager of Safety and Loss Control for Flint Energies, is urging farmers not to let familiarity breed complacency — because on a farm, that’s often when accidents happen.
“When you’ve got a harvest going on or a bunch of sod that needs to be picked up, you’ve got a lot of things on your mind. Overhead power lines might not be one of them — especially if it’s a line that was just built a month ago and isn’t something you’re used to,” Knowles said.
Knowles has seen firsthand how quickly a routine task can turn dangerous. One case he returns to often involves a truck driver who had worked the same stretch of road for years — until the lines shifted slightly.
“He had dealt with that road for years, but the lines had shifted just a little too far toward the road. When he raised the bed of the truck, it hit our three-phase power line — it caused damage to the truck, blew out the tires, broke some of the trailer mounts, and did damage to the electronics,” Knowles said. “Luckily, our protective devices opened up, the line was knocked off, and everything was okay.” The farmer walked away unharmed — but it didn’t have to end that way.
Not every incident has that outcome. Knowles references one especially sobering case in his safety presentations.
“A little girl climbed on top of a pivot and came into contact with an overhead power line. It ended up being a fatality — and it’s awful,” he said.
Overhead power lines aren’t the only concern. Flint Energies recently finished installing more than 2,000 miles of fiber across their system — lines that hang lower than traditional power lines and weren’t there before.
“We’ve had tractors get into wires, and we’ve also had irrigation systems where the stop didn’t work. By the time we got called out, the irrigation system had almost flipped — it was caught on our wire,” Knowles said.
Underground utilities present their own risks, especially after erosion or washouts alter the depth of buried lines.
“You really don’t think about underground safety much, but if we have wires underground that used to be four feet deep and a washout brings them to two feet deep, whenever someone goes to plow, they can get into our wire,” Knowles said.
Another often-overlooked hazard: new farm equipment is frequently taller than what a farmer previously operated — meaning lines that were never a problem before suddenly are.
“You buy new equipment and it’s taller. Those lines that you might have always made it under, you might not make it under this time,” Knowles said.
He also cautions against piling dirt beneath power lines, which gradually reduces clearance over time. As grass grows over the mounds, the reduced clearance becomes invisible — but the danger doesn’t go away.
Knowles says the farmers in his service area generally do a good job of communicating with the co-op when they’re working near lines — and he points to a recent example where a farm needed to move a grain bin that didn’t have clearance beneath an existing power line.
“They called us, and we came out and lifted the power lines probably fifteen feet or more so they could get underneath with the excavator that was holding part of the silo,” he said. “That’s exactly what we want.”
What Knowles doesn’t want is the alternative: someone hitting a guy wire, a pole, or a line and not reporting it — leaving a compromised structure in the field until something worse happens.
“People will hit our guy wires that hold back our poles and won’t tell us. Without that guide wire holding back the strain, if it breaks, the pole’s going to lean — and when it leans, that wire sags. People have run into lines exactly like that,” he said.
His message to farmers is simple: if something doesn’t look right, make the call.
“We’re here for them. If something doesn’t look right, call us. We’ll come out and check it out,” Knowles said.