WM Utility truck damaged in front-end collision

WM Utility truck damaged in front-end collision

Ill- timed accident comes following safe driving directive

news@theeveningtimes.com

It’s never good to have an accident, and an on-the-job fender-bender is even worse, but a crash just after receiving a warning about the dangers of distracted driving?

That was the case earlier this month, as the West Memphis Utility Commission received the rundown on a West Memphis Utility truck involved in an injury accident from the Electric Department’s Brett Sims who oversees most of the utility’s safety and training regulations.

“Literally an hour before the accident happened, I passed out our monthly safety topic — distracted driving,” said Sims. “The department managers had just gotten it.

Not in time, it would seem, to prevent a frontend collision between a utility Ford F-350 and another city vehicle. Sims said the incident resulted in 20 days of lost time for the injured driver as well as damage to the vehicles.

Safety priorities were addressed throughout the Utility Department in October.

“Every year in October, we have six-month change out on rubber gloves and sleeves for lineman and servicemen as well,’ said Sims. “Apprentices had scheduled training classes in different weeks according to classifications. We had water department employees take some preparatory classes for distribution water lines.”

Utilities General Manager Todd Pedersen said trainers were brought into the city for electrical worker training held at Southland Park, drawing participants from other regional departments. “We had a Utilities Summit,” explained Pedersen.

“Brett helped organize it with Municipal Fund Utility Alliance (MFUA) for our lineman’s training.

They brought in speakers from across the country including APPA, Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, Southwest Power Pool. It was a two day training held out at Southland. We had 51 people come into our city and many stayed at our local hotels and dined in restaurants in the city.”

The summit was a boon to the city as MFUA traditionally holds its annual meetings in Western Missouri, he noted.

“They brought it here because their organization thought they could pull well from this area and it went very well,” said Pedersen.

In other news, utility commissioners

finalized approval of a new job

description for a Water/Wastewater Maintenance Foreman. The foreman supervises lift station mechanics and reports to the Water Superintendent.

The position is on the organization chart and approved by city council for the 2017 budget and commissioners gave the nod to the formal job description.

“I am asking this to be forwarded to city council for approval,” said Pedersen.

“The primary responsibility is for all our day-to-day oversight of our wastewater pumping stations.”

By John Rech