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.
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. Under O. Reg. 213/91, s. 14(3)–(4), the talk is held by a supervisor or a competent person the supervisor appoints — 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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