Valentine’s Day: The Only Safe Metallic Balloon is a Secure One
When not tied to a weight or kept indoors, the colorful gifts can drift away and into power lines and equipment, causing outages and potential injuries.
Because this metallic balloon is tied to a weight (left) as required by California law, it won’t float dangerously near power lines (middle) and lead to inconveniences, such as inoperable traffic lights (right).
When ready to dispose of metallic balloons, people should puncture them several times or cut the knot with scissors before throwing them in the garbage so they won’t float away.
Released balloons like this one caused 30 and 64 power outages, respectively, last February and March in Southern California Edison’s service territory. Balloons caused 656 overall outages last year for the utility, down slightly from 689 outages in 2013.
