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LADWP Urges Safe Handling of Mylar Balloons to Prevent Outages

LADWP Urges Safe Handling of Mylar Balloons to Prevent Outages 
LOS ANGELES — During this festive time of year filled with graduations and other special occasions, officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) remind all Los Angeles residents about the dangers and significant inconvenience posed by the release of Mylar balloons and oversized latex balloons into the air. Each year, thousands of homes and businesses are impacted by stray Mylar and oversized balloons causing power outages. The silver, metallic coating on Mylar balloons is a perfect conductor for electricity. When contact with power lines is made, they can short transformers, cause power outages, melt electrical wires causing them to fall. They can even spark an electrical surge that could potentially destroy home electronics.

Careless handling of these balloons can cause injury to the public and to utility employees working on equipment. In addition, balloon-caused outages often lead to traffic tie-ups since power outages can disrupt traffic signals, and cause a significant inconvenience for residents and business owners who lose power.

Randy Howard, LADWP Senior Assistant General Manager, Power System, said, “We want everyone to enjoy their graduations, weddings and other festive occasions this season, but we strongly encourage everyone mindful of the risks that these shiny metallic or oversized balloons pose when they are released or drift away and become entangled in power lines. Maintaining the safety of the public and our personnel is a top priority for LADWP.”

LADWP offers the following important safety tips for handling Mylar balloons:

• Always attach a weight to metallic balloons

• Never release a metallic balloon outdoors

• Keep metallic balloons away from power lines

• Never use metallic ribbon with metallic balloons

• Always deflate metallic balloons and dispose of them properly when no longer in use

• Never release large/oversized latex balloons or large bunches of latex balloons. They can strike power lines when released or when they fall back to the ground

Florists and other merchants must ensure that metallic balloons are properly weighted, and should remind their customers not to release them outdoors.  California law (California Penal Code Chapter 1559 Section 653.1) restricts the use of metallic balloons and metallic ribbon. In essence, the law states the metallic balloon must be weighted down separately so it does not travel up into the power lines. The law also prohibits metallic ribbon from being attached to helium-filled balloons.

Always assume power lines are energized. Always keep yourself, your equipment and all other items, at least 10 feet away from power lines. If a balloon or any object becomes entangled in an overhead power line, do not climb the pole or make any other attempt to retrieve the object. If a power line falls on the car while you are driving or riding as a passenger, stay inside of your vehicle, call 911 if you can and wait for help to arrive before exiting. Do not open the door and do not exit the vehicle. Wait for help to arrive.

The largest municipally owned utility in the nation, the LADWP was established more than 100 years ago to provide water and electricity to meet the needs of the City’s residents and businesses. LADWP currently serves more than 3.8 million customers.

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For more information contact:

Joseph Ramallo
LADWP Communications
(213) 367-1361