Call before you dig! Every time you dig!

[Benhameen]

Its called Julie here in Illnios, at least in southern Illinois.

Years ago I built a motocross track on my property. We didn't have any extra dirt or the money to buy the extra that was needed to make the jumps, so we dug it out in between the jumps. A few years later we had a really bad storm called a derecho, no power for a few weeks. Long story short all the utility companies were called out for not having their underground utilities marked properly. Turns out there was a 12” gas line within a foot of where we had dug. Pretty sure I wouldn’t be typing this f we had hit it.

 

[shootem604]

I had to put in a new drain and called the number here for the locate service. Everyone marked their lines, but the phone company couldn't be bothered and told me I was fine. I hit a thick underground cable and ripped it right off. It had something like 300 of those hair thin wires in it. Their techs spent a whole night in the trench splicing it back together, cursing their locate crews - it was mid December, and it was cold and windy and drifting. Out here, you pay big time if you hit something and didn't call first.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

4 decades ago ,friend was tiling one of his fields, came across a HUGE Bell line.Seems they had a main (1000 pair, maybe 5000 pair ?) line through his property. Said Bell Canada on it.. he calls them, they say nosir we do NOT have any cables in that area. He says 'well you've got 30 minutes to get here and SEE this cable 'Bell Canada xxxxxx' IS here. 35 minutes from now I'll be ripping it up and YOU'LL have to explain to 'corporate and customers' why a MAIN TRUNK is no longer connected.
You have to understand this is BEFORE smart phones, internet, etc. 20 minutes later a Bell green van pulls up ,confirms, it's Bell and pleads with friend to NOT rip it up. He did get a good sized cheque later that month....

Locally everything is 'supposed' to be buried minimum 22". I think that's the 'magical' number of inches a Case580 with normal bucket goes down in one full 'swoop'. 'They' didn't do that to the field I was discing... LOTS of shredded up cable that day and a LOT of neighbours without highspeed internet or tv....oh well.NOT my fault...hehehehe

 

[Lil Foot]

Back when I still had a landline to the cabin, I called to have the phone line marked so I wouldn't take it out when I dug the trench to bring power to the garage. The phone company guy traced & marked it, then began scratching at the ground with a screwdriver, uncovering the line. He said that company policy was that if the line was dusty, it was buried. After we scraped the dirt off, I marked it with white spray paint.

 

[ctfjr]

I did and everything was marked, phone cable power. My contractor was operating a track hoe and hit every one of them. Seems the marking was about 8 feet off from the real line's. The only thing I lost was phone and a new Fiber line, the power lines were not hurt. I guess even if you call be careful because as I found out they are not always correct.

I have exactly the same story
We had to remove an underground oil tank at the house. My contractor called 'call before you dig' here in CT. They promptly came out and marked the underground power and phone lines leading to the house.

Only off by 8-10 feet. The hoe operator managed to catch the neutral line of our 400amp service and lift it a little. He should have called the utility company immediately because the insulation was nicked. He didn't. He just taped it up. That was Friday afternoon.

On Monday afternoon I was in my ham shack in the basement. I could smell something burning. I ran upstairs and the light dimmer switches were all smoking in the kitchen.

Bottom line - he pulled the neutral right out of our service. It took until Monday before the lines got really unbalanced. I was putting ~190v on one side and 35v on the other. $40k + and months of finding 'stuff' burned up (just like the insurance adjuster said).

The best part? His insurance company and the call before you dig insurance company wouldn't pay 100%. I lost part of my deductible and my insurance company raised my rates! wtf?