Thank you for asking. We need everyone to put safety above all else, and you are in a position to help push that agenda.
The rule does not make exceptions for mobile storage. I strongly recommend that you not allow it.
The intent of having clear working space is to make it ?more nearly safe? for a maintenance person to work on a live panel. If the person accidently touches a live part, the current passing through the hand will force the muscles in the hand to contract. This essentially makes the person grip the energized part more firmly. Sometimes, the only hope for survival comes when the person loses all control of body muscles, and collapses to the floor. The weight of the falling body may very well pull the hand away from the energized part. But if there is no room to fall, if the space is occupied by stuff stored illegally, the person will not fall far enough to pull the hand away from the panel.
So they say the storage is ?mobile.? That is today?s story. Tomorrow they will add a box, and next week they will add something else. The one most important thing to avoid is a maintenance worker saying to himself or herself, ?It?s such a pain to move all that mobile stuff, and I?ll only be inside the panel for a couple minutes, so I?ll just leave it there.?
