Winter has arrived with a vengeance. The East Coast is under lock-down as Hurricane-turned-tropical storm Sandy rumbles through, flooding and knocking down power lines and trees all along her path. If she drops a tree across your path, what are you going to do?
City electricians, homeowners, site maintenance workers, and many others find themselves having to brave the elements in these situations. It can be dangerous work, as well as soggy and cold. One of the best things you can do to keep yourself and others safe is to make sure people are aware of the situation.
Rechargeable Aervoe LED Road Flares are a great way to be seen. These bright beacons have a number of different flashing patterns. Flashing patterns are something that sounded a little fancy and fairly useless to me. At least they did, until I saw them in action.
The rotating pattern, for instance, creates a very active light display that is tough to miss for up to a mile away. The Aervoe LED flare will continue to spin the pattern of 16 LED lights with the same intensity in rain or snow for a full seven hours when fully charged. Once the emergency is over, you can get yourself a fog machine and some Techno music, and you've got yourself an instant Rave. But first things first.
Some of the other patterns to alert passersby to an emergency situation are the less showy, but certainly highly visible, and much better than a flash light, single-blink every two seconds. This steady pattern can be sustained for an astounding 50 hours with the one charge.
Since we are talking about being seen while working outside in low light, it might be a good time to mention the reflective properties of some of the jackets and waterproof pants we carry. The Reflective Jacket has wide, highly-reflective strips that meet ANSI/ISEA 107-2004 Class 3 for high visibility garment standards. It's got a fleece collar so it's comfortable around your neck, and it has lots of pockets for tools, phones, radios, Clif Bars, spare rechargeable flares, or what have you.
The matching waterproof suit are also made of really durable (not fake durable) 300 D trilobal rip-stop polyester. Or to put it another way, they are pants you could actually wear to put snow chains on, or chainsaw the frosty branches off the tree that fell across your street.
In tandem, the rechargeable Aervoe LED Road Flares and the Viking reflective gear will keep you visible, warm, and dry while you take care of whatever the winter storms toss your way.