Monmouth Fire Assistant Chief Urges Caution Around Downed Power Lines

With the recent storms that went through the area, a tremendous amount of power lines were knocked down. Monmouth Fire Assistant Chief Craig Cozadd reminds the public to always assume those lines are live and not get close to them:

“First of all, do call in the call if you lose power or if a tree limb is down or a line is down that you can see, do call 911 to let them know. We will go out and we check every single call. The one thing I want to stress is that there is no reason for anybody in the public to be out around the downed lines. We have had multiple issues with that. We obviously can see where they are at, we have the call, we are trained to understand what we are looking at, but the thing I am trying to stress the most, there is no reason for any of the public to be anywhere close to those lines that are down. You don’t have to touch the power line to be electrocuted by it. If you have one that is in a tree and are within 10 feet of it, you could be electrocuted by it depending on what it is doing.

During last week’s storm, Assistant Chief Cozadd said the Monmouth Fire Department responded to around 30 calls.