In the days following August 11, National Call Before You Dig Day, Frontier Communications is reminding consumers to call 8-1-1 prior to any digging projects. The 8-1-1 phone number, used in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, provides homeowners with a free service that identifies and safely marks underground utilities to avoid accidental outages and the disruption of critical services.
By calling 8-1-1 three days before digging, homeowners and contractors will be connected to an organization that notifies the appropriate utility companies of the plans to dig. Professional locators are then sent to the requested digging site to mark the approximate locations of underground lines with flags, spray paint or both.
John Lass, Executive Vice President, Field Operations for Frontier, notes that striking a single underground line can lead to injuries, repair costs, fines and inconvenient outages. For example, “A fiber-optic cable is made up of ultra-thin strands of glass or plastic; one cable can have as few as two strands or as many as several hundred. Each strand is capable of carrying something like 25,000 telephone calls, so an entire fiber-optic cable can easily carry several million calls.”
Utility depth is not guaranteed, which means lines could be just a few inches or several feet under the surface. Lass notes, “The depth of utility lines can vary due to erosion, previous digging projects, and uneven surfaces. Utility lines need to be properly marked because even when digging only a few inches, the risk of striking an underground utility line still exists. Simply calling 8-1-1 three days in advance of digging means you can proceed safely and legally.”
For more information, visit http://call811.com/
