Stop. Assume the wire is live and get back
A downed power line is not a repair problem you are deciding how to handle. It is a life-safety hazard, and the first thing to do is get away from it and keep everyone else away.
Stay at least 35 feet from the wire. The Electrical Safety Foundation warns that the ground around a downed line can be energized up to 35 feet away — and farther when the ground is wet. You do not have to touch the wire to be hurt. Electricity spreading out through the ground drops off with distance, which means the earth near a live line sits at different voltages from one step to the next, and a person bridging that difference with two feet apart can be shocked. That is why the guidance is to keep your distance and, if you must move near a line, shuffle away in small steps with your feet together on the ground.
Hold onto three rules while you back away:
- Assume every downed wire is live. You cannot tell whether a line is energized by looking at it. A line lying still, not sparking, not humming, can be fully energized.
- A wire that looks like phone or cable is not automatically safe. A communication line can be energized where a power line above it has fallen against it. Treat all of them as live.
- Do not touch the line, anything touching it, or water near it. Not with your hand, not with a broom, a stick, or a rope. The Electrical Safety Foundation is explicit: do not attempt to move a downed line or anything in contact with it, and be careful not to touch or step in water near where a line is down.
Then make the calls. 911 first, so emergency responders are on the way and can close off the area, and your electric utility’s emergency line second, because they are the only ones who can actually shut the power off and repair the wire. If there is a fire or an injury, you still call 911 first — you are not choosing between them, you are calling both in that order.
If a line is on your car
This is the scenario people get wrong, and the right answer is counterintuitive: stay inside the vehicle.
If a line falls onto your car and the car is stopped, the safest place is inside it. The car’s body can carry the current around you and into the ground, so as long as you are not touching both the metal and the ground at once, you are protected. Call 911, honk your horn to attract help, and wave people off — the danger is greatest to anyone standing outside who reaches in or touches the car. Do not let a bystander open your door or help you out.
The only reason to leave is if the car catches fire. In that case you have to break contact with the car and the ground at the same instant. Open the door, and jump clear — both feet together — so that you land on the ground without any part of you still touching the vehicle. If you step out normally, one foot down while a hand is still on the door, you become the path between the car and the earth. Once you have landed with your feet together, shuffle away in small steps, keeping your feet close, until you are well clear.
If a line comes down onto your car while you are still moving, keep driving out from under it if you can do so safely. It is only the stopped car resting on the line that you stay inside.
If someone is in contact with a line
Every instinct says to pull them away. Do not.
If a person is touching a downed line, or touching anything the line is touching, they are part of the circuit — and if you grab them, so are you. That is how a single casualty becomes two. Call 911 immediately and tell the dispatcher a power line is involved. Keep back, keep others back, and do not touch the person or anything in contact with the line. Do not try to move the wire off them with a broom handle or a branch; wood and other “insulators” conduct once they are damp or dirty, and this is not the moment to test that.
The person can only be reached safely once the utility has de-energized the line. That is the entire reason the utility’s emergency number is the second call after 911: they are the ones with the ability to kill the power.
Who to call, in order
The order is fixed, and it is short:
- 911 — first, every time. A downed wire, a line on a car, arcing, a fire, or an injury. They dispatch responders and can barricade the area.
- Your electric utility’s emergency or outage line — immediately after. They own the conductor and are the only party who can de-energize and repair it. If you do not know the number, it is on your electric bill and often on the meter; the same 24/7 line handles outages.
- 911 again for medical help — if anyone was shocked or is in contact with a line. Do not touch them yourself.
That is the whole emergency response. Everyone else on the list is for after the utility has made the scene safe.
Why not a tree service or an electrician
The wire in the road or on the tree is the utility’s property, and only the utility can shut off the power feeding it. That single fact is why a downed conductor is never a tree-service call and never an electrician call.
A tree service does not touch a line, ever. If a tree has brought a line down — and especially if it is also lying across the road — the utility de-energizes and clears the conductor first; a tree crew addresses the tree only once the line is confirmed dead and removed. Running a chainsaw near a live line is one of the ways this exact scenario kills people. If the same tree also came down on your house, the full sequence of calls — wires and 911 before anything else, then insurer, then tree service, then roofer — is laid out on our page for a tree that fell on the house.
A licensed electrician does not touch the utility’s line either. There is a real job for an electrician here, but it comes later and it is only your own equipment: if the falling wire tore the mast and weatherhead off the side of your house, those belong to you, and an electrician repairs them — after the utility has de-energized, usually under permit, and before the utility will reconnect.
After the utility clears it: what’s yours to fix
Once the emergency is over, a downed service line to your house can leave you with your own repair, and it helps to know the boundary before anyone quotes you.
The dividing line is the point where the wires attach to your house. The utility owns the service drop up to that attachment and will de-energize, disconnect, and later restring and reconnect it. You own the mast, the weatherhead, the service-entrance conductors, and the meter base — the hardware bolted to your wall. If the fall bent the mast or ripped the weatherhead loose, a licensed electrician repairs your side, commonly under a permit and inspection, and then the utility comes back to reconnect, in many territories only after that inspection is signed off. Calling the electrician before the utility has de-energized simply means they cannot start.
The ownership split, and who pays for which piece, is the same boundary that governs an ordinary outage — we go through it in detail on the whole-street outage page. And if any of that service equipment is scorched, buzzing, or smells of burnt plastic after the line comes down, treat it as a fire risk rather than a scheduling problem: killing the circuit comes before troubleshooting.
Driving, water, and the things that catch people out
A few last hazards account for most of the avoidable injuries:
- Never drive over a downed line, and never drive or walk through water that is in contact with one. The road, the water, and any metal nearby can all be energized.
- Downed lines in flooding are invisible. After a storm, standing water may be hiding an energized line. Do not wade through floodwater near downed poles or wires.
- Fences, guardrails, and puddles can be energized by a line touching them well away from the wire itself. If a downed line is touching a metal fence, the whole fence is a hazard down its length.
- Do not go near a substation or a padmounted transformer (the green metal boxes on the ground) to investigate, and keep clear of any pole a car has hit even if you do not see a wire down.
When in doubt, the rule that covers all of it is the one at the top of this page: keep 35 feet back, assume it is live, and let the people whose job it is — 911 and the utility — make it safe.