Firefighters and emergency services who carelessly enter flooded areas and begin pumping and cleanup work easily put themselves in mortal danger.
Electrical voltage can get into the water in flooded rooms in many ways without triggering a safety device: via faulty connections, defective cables, via multiple sockets or household appliances that are wet and even via the protective conductor (earthing).
If the house connection box and the feed are already flooded, you can almost certainly assume that there is electrical voltage in the water. In addition, there are increasingly complex installations such as photovoltaic systems, storage systems and charging stations for electric vehicles. In such cases, disconnecting the building from the public power grid does not guarantee that there will be no voltage.
In case of doubt, the following applies: entry into the relevant area is prohibited, contact the responsible supply network operator for further measures.
It’s not just laypeople who are at risk. Firefighters and emergency services are also at risk when pumping out or entering flooded cellars, underground car parks and buildings.
