Lightning & Severe Weather
A storm doesn't wait for a good stopping point. On an open site, the crane, the scaffold and the rebar in your hands make you the tallest thing around the second lightning starts looking for a way down. A free talk from Blue Crane Works in Hamilton, Ontario, with a printable sign-in sheet.
How to run it
Read it through once, then talk it — don't recite it. Five minutes at the start of the shift, crew standing where the work happens. Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act requires every employer to provide information, instruction and supervision to protect workers (s. 25(2)(a)). A talk like this, led by a supervisor or someone they trust, is one way to do it, and the sign-in sheet is what proves it happened.
Talk through these points
- If you can hear thunder, the storm is already close enough to reach you. Don't wait to see a strike before you stop work.
- Get off anything that sticks up and get away from anything that conducts — scaffolding, ladders, crane baskets, roof edges, rebar cages, chain-link and metal railings all become the path of least resistance.
- A hard-sided vehicle or a real building beats standing under a tree or under a pop-up canopy every time. A canopy with metal poles isn't shelter — it's a target with your name on it.
- Once the crew is inside, stay there. A storm that looks like it's passing can double back, and the strike nobody saw coming is usually the one that gets someone.
- High wind is its own hazard even without lightning behind it — loose sheathing, swinging loads, anything left hanging on a hook. Know who has the call to stop the work and what that call sounds like on this site.
- Have a real muster point the whole crew knows before the sky turns, not a shouted "somewhere covered" once everyone's already running for it.
Ask the crew
- From wherever you're standing right now, where's the nearest hard shelter?
- Who's watching the sky today, and who actually has the call to stop the work?
- What's still tied off, plugged in, or hanging on a hook that needs to come down before we head for cover?
The answers are the real talk. If a question lands on a live hazard, write it down and assign it a name and a date.
Paper it
A talk without a record didn't happen, as far as anyone who asks is concerned. Print these free:
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