OT Call Before Dig markings (pics involved)

Some of you may have heard about a darwin-type tradgedy that occurred in my town yesterday. Contractors struck a gas line while trying to excavate a water line. The duplex house exploded killing and injuring innocents, including a baby and teen age boy. I think we are at 5 injured and 2 killed. They failed to call 811 and get the utilities marked before firing up their backhoe and starting to dig.

I was going to erect a new fence at the back of one of my properties. The adjoining property owner informed me he knew where everything was and that the gas line was on his side of the property and I had nothing to worry about. I did call 811 and had the property marked. The gas distribution line was 4 feet on my property and ran parallel to the fence, with connections to both my house and my neighbors house, coming off this distribution line.

The markers included spraying some yellow paint and placing little yellow flags here and there. I had already used some orange paint to mark the proposed fence line. I took a bunch of pictures and enhanced the markings using the MS Paint program. I also took measurements and placed them on the pictures for future reference.

Now my questions, can someone tell me what the yellow circles with crossing lines indicate? I thought maybe a valve or "tee", but really have no idea.

Also, in the middle of the yard, was a strange "hieroglyph" of some sort in red color. I'm not sure whether it is a collection of symbols, or a combined symbol. Part of it looks like it could indicate North, and part of it reminds me of the old "sparky" figure. Any ideas what it means? I sort of see an O & H, could mean electrical "overhead".

raw gas marking:


enhanced marking:


larger picture enhanced (pink is my fence line):


Strange electrical(?) hieroglyph: now with "True Temper's" Insight

I deal with this stuff daily, The bottom photo I would say the phone company has been there and you are clear to dig. If you look close you can see "OK" I don't know what the rest of it says. On the gas line my guess is they just got sloppy with there paint.

On edit the bottom photo says OK, TV, ATT, Meaning ATT was there and they have no underground lines in the area.

Now that you point it out, I can see a top line with "OK TV" and a second line with "ATT" underneath. I could sure see a little elf or something, like he was dancing a jig. Oh my, what would I say on a Rorschach test?

Don't the little yellow circles and crossing lines mean anything? The one feeding my neighbor's gas meter had two circles on either side of the line leading to his house. (see 3rd picture that is "enhanced")

What are you planning to do....put up a concrete bunker type of fence? Are you using a backhoe or something? Most fences, you just dig some holes by hand which I doubt would rupture a gas line.

Who was the brainaiack that planted the GAS METER in the middle of the yard???
Why dont you move that to right next to the house it serves?

At my former rental house the renter called me one day and asked if I ever had problems with the electrical service. I asked why and he said only "half of the circuits were working". i.e. one leg of the 220V was out. Turns out the family that had moved in next door had decided to dig in their yard and had cut part of the 220V feeder to my rental house. They had not called the marking service. That neighbor is lucky to be alive.

Utilities are starting to charge folks for cut lines/utilities if they fail to call the marking service.

Walt

PS - Yeah - what the heck is that meter doing in the middle of the yard??

My experience with them coming out and marking was very poor. I stayed home to talk with the them, left my number, they knew I would be home. Someone came and marked in street all "utilities in alley". I only saw them driving off. I already knew that, but where?
Only the water company called and she did trace the main line to the house, Right under the sidewalk. She did say she was not allowed to mark on my, property only up to the meter, but she walked it out with me.
Bill D.

If I was administering the test, you'd pass with flying colors. I thought it was a guy running with a snake, probably to throw it over the fence at the neighbor with the bad info.

Ben

Kinda funny how things work as I am having to deal with this today. Main water line to the house failed yesterday afternoon. Water, gas, wire phone, cable and fibreoptic lines all run in the area around that end of the house along with the sewer somewhere close by. Got home this morning to a flooded yard and water running out the meterbox and down the street. The plumbing company I called is trying to get the line marking people out asap as we are supposed to have heavy rain for tonight and tomorrow...... Sheeshh.

Prior to trenching for buried utility lines during the rehab phase of my current house, I had the marking crew stop by for a visit. I was home at the time, and came out to "say hi" halfway through their work. They had just neatly marked the gas line entrance from the street to the house, but had it located on the wrong end of the house. When challenged, they pointed to their little map photo document (like a photo negative, only "positive") and said "look it says so right here". Trouble was, the gas meter was at the other end of the house, and I surmised that it was unlikely that the gas company would take any other path than directly from the house to the main line. He was pretty adamant, until I pointed out that he was viewing the back side of his photo transparency. Oops.

Years later, they ran a new line (horizontal boring) as part of a mainline upgrade. The new one has an electric tracer line in it.

Chip

i used to work for a plumber part time, oh about 40 years ago. once he accidentally cut thru a phone line that had something like 100 pairs in it, I think the phone company charged him 2 bucks a pair to fix them. but right next to it was another line with something like 1000 pairs in it. I was building a house years ago and when I was laying out the driveway I used little yellow flags that someone had given me, the excavator refused to start work until I gave him a written note that the flags were not from the underground utility guys. Back in the 80s, my father was having a water line modified, the contractor accidentally broke a 6 or 8 inch high pressure gas line in the street, you could litteraly see the gas jetting up through the air! it took a considerable amount of time for the gas company to turn that line off. That contractor is now a US congressman. [not relevant but I like to say inane things]

About 20 years ago I worked as dispatcher for a sewer and watermain contractor. I used to have to call for all locates. When I was busy I was getting a little sloppy about always writing down the clearance numbers the telephone company gives if things are all clear and no locates are necessary. We got an all clear from bell for putting in a new water service. On the day they were installing the service I got a panicked call from the crew foreman "I thought we had an all clear on this job" I assured him that we did. He told me they had just run a torpedo through some major lines so it was my turn to panic until I made sure I HAD written down the clearance #.

When all was said and done the torpedo had gone through 2 10,000 pair cables and a fibre optic line. There was a major switching station about a block away. When I drove by a day or two later in the EVENING there were about 20 Bell vehicles parked on the street They had the entire lawn dug up and part of the neigbouring lawns, they had a large tent and lights set up over the hole but you could see at least 8 large cables running through the lawns in the hole either side of the tent.


I was much more diligent about always writing down the numbers after this. I probably would have been canned had the company gotten saddled with the hundreds of thousands or more of dollars that this repair cost.

Pattnmaker said:

I was much more diligent about always writing down the numbers after this. I probably would have been canned had the company gotten saddled with the hundreds of thousands or more of dollars that this repair cost.

Click to expand...

And that's the point... the locating service is your "get-out-of-jail-free card." And, it doesn't cost you a penny. Dig a hole where nothing is marked, hit something worth a million bucks (maybe literally worth that much) and it ain't your problem. Hit it without calling, and see where the buck stops.

Things to keep in mind... there is not much sense in talking to the locate crew / crews, some of them are contract services, don't know nuttin', and have control over even less. The locate services only typically locate the lines owned by the utility they work for, only to the point their ownership ends; with any extensions of those lines such as water and electricity between buildings, you are on your own. This is especially troublesome where meters are located remote from the buildings, as they typically only locate and mark the line as far as the meter. The other one that's a bummer is when the area you need to dig is just covered with marks... you are expected to "hand dig" and you take the responsibility for damage. And yeah, a hand post hole digger can sever a gas line, since the gas service lines used for the last couple decades are plastic, as well as phone, cable TV, and electric.

When calling, you have to describe the intended job site. If you need the alley, don't just give them your address, if you need to dig in the alley, or on they parkway, tell them. Don't just expect to catch the locate crew... putting it on the order up front gets it in writing for later when the fit hits the shan. Order more site than you need. It's free.

One last thing... the locate has a finite life... typically two weeks. This is to prevent someone from adding a new utility line after the job site was marked out... with modern directional boring, they can sneak one in without your even knowing. So, if this is a DIY project and is going to run longer don't just assume nothing has been added, call again. It's free.

Dennis

Here is the requisite "I knew a guy" story.....

A friend worked for Bell. He tells me the story of a big severed cross country phone line.

In a county west of me an elderly farmer has to go to the hospital for a stay. While he's indisposed, a neighboring farmer comes over to take care of the farm and the animals. A cow dies up near the house and the wife calls the neighbor to come help dispose of it.

He comes over and gets the guys backhoe out and drags the cow out to the back 40 with intentions of burying it. Hole gets dug, cow goes in, dirt goes back on top and the job is done.

Somewhere or other, lights and bells and whistles started going off indicating a separated major phone line.

After a while the phone company trucks start showing up out at the farm. Ma didn't know what the problem was, but told them to help themselves.

The phone company guys go out in the pasture and soon located the problem. My buddy tells me they scraped off the dirt and finally get down to the decomposing cow underneath. He says it was not a pretty sight.

Can't recall exactly how much he said that cost them, but I think it was in the 24000 dollar range.

Since we're telling stories...

Story #1...one week ago...
Power co. is coming to bury a new line to my shop. Telephone came and located one line coming in to the area from the west to a junction box and one line leaving the box heading east.

I told the hoe operator (Mark) that there are 3 lines heading east...1 to my house, 1 to Dad's house and an old one not used anymore. It took a lot of convincing before Mark's boss showed up and he had his locator with him. Took him a long time to find the other line - really weak signal.

Mark starts digging and after a couple of scoops, up comes a tele cable. You should have seen the look on his face! Luckily, it was the old cable!

Anyway, we did find the 2 cables that were in use and managed not to dig them up. It's a good thing that I insisted that there were more lines down there than marked.And yes, I know it would have been the phone company's fault since they didn't mark them, but the inconvenience would have been mine, not theirs!

Story #2:
Dad was overseeing a water line being dug in back in the early 70's. They had to tie into the water main, cross an empty lot to get to the destination.

Called power co. - no lines in the area - "Start digging".
Called the phone co. - no lines in the area - "Start digging".
Called the Natural Gas Co. - no lines in the area - "Start digging".

Backhoe promptly pulls up a 200 pair bundle of wires....shut 'er down...calls the tele co again..."Nothing there, start digging". Dad told them about the 200 pairs. "OK, we'll send out a truck."

Backhoe moves over and tries again. Pulls the yellow protective cover off of a gas line....shut 'er down...call the gas company..."Nothing there, start digging". Dad told them about the covering. "OK, we'll send out a truck."

On a hunch, he called the power company again. They insisted nothing was there. He told them what had happened already and "Please check again." They decided to send a truck over. Before he was out of the construction trailer, 3 power co trucks roll up and white hats everywhere are insisting that there are no cables under this lot - "quit bugging us".

Just then the junior guy points to a power pole and asks "Where does that line go?" as he follows the wires down the pole and into the ground. Turns out the lines ran right through the middle of the lot!!!



In other words....even the locate service can be wrong!

Andrew

Gregsy,

It's easy to cut through a gas line, today. My kid did it when he tried to sell a house in Pittsburgh. Needed a railing along 4 steps to the sidewalk. Dug 2 holes with a shovel alongside the steps, sliced into a plastic gas line. You could hear the gas whooshijg.

Called the Utility, sent a truck, he shut the main shutoff valve, "Call a plumber." Told the boy to offer to pah him to put a repair coupling, similar to a Dressler, on the line. He agreed, and 100 bucks and 15 minutes later, gas was restored.

Digging spade will easily cut plastic tubing, with some weight on it.

Cheers,

George

Looks like something from Erich Von Daniken's Ancient Aliens

Years ago, I was the inspector on a very inexperienced underground crew. We broke at least one of everything that summer, except electrical (it was overhead.) Water, sewer, phone, gas.

It's amazing how fast a trench can fill up with water when you yank that little bitty lateral out of the main. Even faster when an 8" valve comes of the end of a line because the old pipe fractures when the backfill is being compacted.

The scariest was the plastic gas main. We knew it was there, so were looking for it, but the mark was a couple of feet off. Backhoe bucket snagged it and started pulling it up and sideways, but the operator couldn't see it. The next couple of seconds went in slow motion. In the end, it was just crimped, but it sure was close.

Yes, communications are difficult, especially if the crew comes when you are at work.

I understand that white is the "proposed" color, so if you were worried about installing post holes, pits, trenchlines, etc. marking out your proposal with white would be an effective communication.

Andrew_D said:

Since we're telling stories...

In other words....even the locate service can be wrong!

Andrew

Click to expand...

Scary stuff, those stories.

Indianapolis seems to do it better. I would prefer to have a Post-It note placed on my door with "Okay", or "see painted notations" with the color code stated.

But, as it is, the service seems timely and effective.