Storms & water · Lake safety
Electric shock drowning: the lake hazard you cannot see from the dock
Fresh water conducts badly enough that a small AC leak turns the water around a dock into something a swimmer cannot get out of.
Electric shock drowning happens when AC current leaks from dock wiring, a boat lift, or a boat’s shore power connection into the surrounding water. Fresh water is a poor conductor compared to the human body, so current preferentially travels through a swimmer. It does not take much. Well below the level that would be fatal on land, current through the chest causes muscle paralysis, and a person who cannot move cannot swim. They go under. From the dock it looks like an ordinary drowning, and people who jump in to help become the second casualty.
It matters here because Smith Lake and Lake Martin are full of private docks with electrical service, many of them installed decades ago and extended informally since, and fresh water is where the hazard exists. Saltwater marinas have a different risk profile entirely.
What we look for
- Leakage current on every circuit feeding the dock, measured rather than assumed
- GFCI protection on every dock and boathouse circuit, tested under load
- Equipment grounding conductor continuity from the dock back to the service
- Bonding of the lift frame, ladders and any metal a swimmer could reach
- Condition of the feeder — direct-buried cable, splices and terminations that have been in weather for years
The practical homeowner rule, separate from any of this: nobody swims within 100 feet of a dock with power on it. Cutting the shore power breaker before anyone gets in the water costs nothing and removes the hazard entirely.