A Springfield resident was killed a few years ago after a gas line exploded during an excavation project in Fairborn.
Contractors performing the work did not call ahead to have the utility lines marked, officials said.
“Call before you dig,” said Fred Willits, the chairman of the Miami Valley Damage Prevention Council. “Better to be safe than sorry.”
By law, Ohio residents and businesses must call the Ohio Utilities Protection Services at 811 at least 48 hours before starting any excavation or digging projects.
Residents and professional contractors should mark the areas in which they plan to dig with white flags or white spray paint, officials said. Professional locators will then visit the dig site and mark the approximate locations of underground power lines, pipes and cables. People who call 811 will have the lines located and marked for free.
Projects that require an 811 call include planting trees, removing tree roots, landscaping work, installing anchors for decks and playground equipment and erecting retainer walls.
Decades ago, most power lines were hung overhead, but today most cables today are put in the ground, and a veritable maze of lines exist beneath people’s yards, said Willits, who is also the president of F.A. Willits LLC, a consulting firm.
Residents who strike power and utility lines may be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to repair the damaged lines, and they also can be charged for loss of service, Willits said.
Striking utility lines can cause serious injury and death.
A 71-year-old Springfield man was killed and five other people were injured in November 2011 when a gas line exploded at a duplex in Fairborn. The line was ruptured during excavation work, and no one called ahead to mark the lines before digging, officials said.
Last week, Montgomery County commissioners approved a proclamation recognizing April as Safe Dig Month.
Utility line locate requests are the simplest and most effective way to prevent damaging lines, officials said. But officials said nothing can prevent all line strikes.
The city of Dayton this month approved spending more than $4,200 to pay to repair a fiber optics cable that was damaged in August while water pipes were being installed.
Dayton crews were removing debris and doing excavation work at the Love’s Truck Stop site on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard when they struck and damaged an AT&T fiber optic cable line with a shovel, officials said.
Michael Powell, Dayton’s manager of water utility field operations, said crews followed the proper safety precautions, but the line was not where it was supposed to be and it did not have protective conduit.
“We always call and get the area marked before beginning any excavations, and we did in this case,” he said. “The cable was at a depth we didn’t expect it to be at, and we nicked it with a shovel. … (Safe digging) definitely minimizes things from happening, but accidents do happen.”
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