Call before you dig

[jinman]

Surely this was a huge mistake and there is no telling why the company was drilling a hole for a electrical transmission pole in this location. I have a map that shows the pipeline location, so it has been known about for a very long time. The auger hit a 36" gas transmission line and it exploded. Unfortunately, one person lost their life. The good news is that the rest of the crew survived.

Gas Pipeline Explosion

 

[crusty 1]

Surely this was a huge mistake and there is no telling why the company was drilling a hole for a electrical transmission pole in this location. I have a map that shows the pipeline location, so it has been known about for a very long time. The auger hit a 36" gas transmission line and it exploded. Unfortunately, one person lost their life. The good news is that the rest of the crew survived.

Gas Pipeline Explosion

Wow, hard to figure that out.Sorry someone had to lose thier life over such a easily preventable situation.We can,t do any digging before calling a locator to map any buried utilities and I,m several miles from the nearest any thing:confused2ave

 

[beppington]

Wow, that is crazy.

Particularly of interest to me: I just closed on 60 acres last Friday that has about a 1,400' natural gas pipeline right-of-way. There's a 36" and a 42" gas pipeline in there. Guess I better not hit them.

 

[jayste]

I saw this on the world news last evening. I thought the same thing. Around here it's 1-800-CALLOKIE. All it takes is a little effort and fore thought.

 

[Duffster]

Did the article say that they didn't call "Diggers Hotline"?

Whether they did or not mistakes happen. I have done alot of digging near a BP pipeline and we have to have a representative of BP onsite while digging. I would think that gas line would have similar requirements.

Even if the site was marked it doesn't mean it didn't get missed somehow, or worse yet it was miss marked.

 

[MossRoad]

I have a friend that called before he dug and they came out and marked his property before he put up a privacy fence. Everything was marked.

His first post hole took out his neighbor's phone lines. So while that was being repaired, he moved over to the other side of the yard where he promptly severed the other neighbor's gas line in about the 3rd hole. :thumbsup:

There was some concern here several years back about the accuracy of the utility maps and the contracting out of utility location services to non-union, non-utility employees. Don't know if it makes any difference... we seem to have our share of blown up houses during utility work with utility employees doing the work.

 

[dave1949]

Jim, saw that on the news last night. 'Call before you dig' is exactly what went through my mind when I saw it, although it was likely more complicated than that - I hope. Sorry to hear one person was killed.
Dave.

 

[ultrarunner]

I have a friend that called before he dug and they came out and marked his property before he put up a privacy fence. Everything was marked.

His first post hole took out his neighbor's phone lines. So while that was being repaired, he moved over to the other side of the yard where he promptly severed the other neighbor's gas line in about the 3rd hole. :thumbsup:

There was some concern here several years back about the accuracy of the utility maps and the contracting out of utility location services to non-union, non-utility employees. Don't know if it makes any difference... we seem to have our share of blown up houses during utility work with utility employees doing the work.

I've had mixed results... I guess the best reason to call is liability.

I was helping a friend install a 8 station sprinkler system at his home on a city residential lot.

The dig guy came out and said there were too many places we had marked for digging???

He said underground utilities could be anywhere and wrote hand dig only...

I got a ditch witch and never had any problems...

 

[Bird]

I have a friend that called before he dug and they came out and marked his property before he put up a privacy fence. Everything was marked.

His first post hole took out his neighbor's phone lines. So while that was being repaired, he moved over to the other side of the yard where he promptly severed the other neighbor's gas line in about the 3rd hole. :thumbsup:

Like ultrarunner said, I think you just need to call to transfer liability from yourself to them. I didn't find anything in the news stories to say whether or not that utility company jinman is talking about called before digging or not.

We had an in ground swimming pool put in our backyard in 1978. I had remembered seeing our gas line when the house was being built, so I knew where it was and knew it had to be moved. Then I called the phone company and a telephone guy came out and marked our phone line and laid us a temporary line on top of the ground (back then you had to call each individual utility). I thought he marked an odd turn in the old line. Sure enough when they dug it up, they cut the next door neighbor's phone line that came through our yard.

I also called the electric company and they said in that neighborhood, I had to call the contractor who installed the electric and HVAC equipment for the home builder the previous year. That company promptly sent a kid to mark the electric line. I was quite sure he didn't know how to use his equipment and that the line did not go under my driveway as he indicated. So I called for his supervisor to check on it. The supervisor called back and assured me that the line was not in my yard, but alongside and under the driveway. Sure enough the first bucket of dirt the backhoe pulled up ripped up the electric line, sparks flew, the backhoe operator bailed off, etc. Fortunately, no one got hurt. The contractor wanted me to pay for moving the line and repairing it, but after we discussed the options, they decided it would be at their expense.:laughing:

 

[jinman]

Well, I should have been more careful with my thread title. I just used a generic phrase and didn't mean to infer that they had not had someone locate that pipeline. As a matter of fact, they showed the mowed portion of the ROW last night on the news and showed how this pipe was actually on the edge of the mowed portion. Perhaps over the years, the clearing of the ROW actually "creeped" over so that the pipe is no longer centered. I am sure somebody told them is was safe to dig where they did. If not, that is a horrible oversight on the part of the utility construction company. There'll be a full investigation and we will know sooner or later.

Hindsight being 20-20, this just seems to be such an easily preventable catastrophe. The images from TV yesterday afternoon will be burned in the minds of everyone in this area and hopefully prevent people from making similar mistakes. For the victim and his family, we can only offer our prayers.