Electrical Safety for Kids Video Playlist
Watch more videos with your kids on how to stay safe. View our kids’ safety videos.
Mire más videos con sus hijos sobre cómo mantenerse a salvo. Vea los videos de seguridad de nuestros niños.
BeAware Bear has some helpful safety tips.
Learn how to be safe with electricity, both indoors and out:
Indoor Safety
- Keep appliances away from water.
- Only plugs go in outlets.
- Place portable heaters away from walls and drapes.
- Place portable heaters where you won’t trip over the cord.
- Unplug decorative and holiday lights when you leave the house.
Outdoor Safety
- Stay away from downed power lines – you can help by calling 911 and inform MID at (209) 526-7337 and say or press 4.
- Never touch fallen power lines or try to rescue someone in contact with a power line.
- If downed power lines have fallen on a motor vehicle, avoid contact with the vehicle.
- If a line falls on your vehicle while you’re in it, stay inside and wait for help. If you have to get out of the vehicle due to fire or smoke, open the door and without touching the sides of the vehicle jump out and land with both feet together and then shuffle away keeping your feet as close together as possible and not lifting them off the ground.
- Call before you dig.
- Keep ladders, tools, and yourself away from power lines.
- Watch out for power lines when you trim a tree.
- Don’t play near power lines or anything electric.
- Never climb utility poles or structures.
- Fly kites, drones and model airplanes in open areas away from power lines.
- If a kite, drone or model airplane gets entangled or flies into a power line or electric equipment, don’t try to remove it yourself. Call MID at (209) 526-8222.
- Balloons, especially Mylar balloons, can cause power outages if they come in contact with power lines.
- Make sure all ballons are secured and keep balloons away from power lines.
- Dispose of balloons properly after use – fully deflate and put them in the trash.
- If you see balloons entangled in a power line, call MID at (209) 526-8222. Don’t try to remove them yourself.
Electric Safety Cartoons to print (PDF)
Electric and Magnetic Fields
Electric and magnetic fields are present wherever electricity flows – around appliances and power lines, in offices, and at schools and homes.
Can EMF harm your health?
Many researchers believe that if there is a risk of adverse health effects from usual residential exposures to EMF, it is probably just at the detection limit of human health studies; nonetheless, the possible risk warrants further investigation. The varying results from epidemiological studies, which looked at estimated EMF exposures and childhood leukemia, are consistent with a weak link. Laboratory studies, including studies investigating a possible mechanism for health effects (mechanistic studies), provide little or no evidence to support this weak link.
What you can do
In a situation of scientific uncertainty and public concern, WHO recommended that utilities explore “very low-cost” ways to reduce EMF exposure from new or upgraded facilities. MID and other California public utilities have been pursuing no-cost and low-cost measures to reduce EMF levels from new utility transmission lines and substation projects. You, too, may want to take no-cost and low-cost measures to reduce your EMF exposure at home and at work.
Human studies have not produced a consensus about any health benefits from changing the way people use electric appliances. But, if you feel reducing your EMF exposure would be beneficial, you can increase your distance from electric appliances and/or limit the amount of time you use appliances at home or at work. For instance, you can place your electric clock away from the head of your bed. Increasing your distance from it and other appliances, such as televisions, computer monitors, and microwave ovens, can reduce your EMF exposure.
You can also reduce your EMF exposure by limiting the time you spend using personal appliances, such as hair dryers, electric razors, heating pads, and electric blankets. You may also want to limit the time you spend using electric cooking appliances.
You can locate the sources of EMF in your work environment and spend break time in lower-field areas.
It is not known whether such actions will have any impact on your health.
For more information, download our EMF brochure.