Counting My Lucky Stars!

dayexco

we're doing the site utilities "storm, sanitary, fire loop" for a new strip mall. call for our locates last week. was digging out for the sanitary, got into the right of way, found the 4" 60 psi gas main, no problem...started digging over the top of it, bear in mind, the one located was totally exposed!!!! 18" back into the bank, was ANOTHER 4" steel gas line. the SOB's locators forgot about the other one!. it was a steel line with the yellow coating on it. well, the line now has no yellow coating, and a pretty good kink to it. needless to say...i lost my cool. forget the possibility of loss of life, how about lost time? if you cut their "****", they're eager to charge you for repair costs and loss of revenue on that line. they got a little pissy with me when i told them i wanted $400 an hr downtime while they made the repairs to the line. i reminded them they're lucky they're not paying off at least a half a dozen widows.

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

tgeb

Well, I am glad to see you are still with us Day.

I would send them a bill for your lost production, I see no reason why they should not have to pay for their mistake. The utility Companies have no problem sending me a bill if I make a mistake.

As you say they are very lucky further damage was not done.
Hats off to you and your crew. Another outfit may have made the 6 o'clock news.

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Tom

www.gebcon.com

jmic

Day,
Never a dull moment!

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___"Remember You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression"______________________
Joe

denick

Day,

I hope you've got a bunch more of those stars. Maybe someday the utilities should have to submit a schematic for your approval of what is in the ground.

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Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

Gmads

"Another outfit may have made the 6 o'clock news."

We were working a job where the locator had marked a 6" gas main on the north side of a major thoroughfare. There was a 24" transmission main on the south side of the road. We were digging on the south side of the road about 20' off the location of the 24" line. Well, we hit a gas main in an area that was supposed to be clear. The gas company originally thought we may have gotten into the 24" line and you can imagine the chaos. Everything was evacuated in a 1/2 mile+ area. I counted 12 fire trucks, 8 police cars, 6 motorcycle cops, 2 news crews, and I don't know how many trucks from the gas company.

Turns out the 6" gas main on the north had been rerouted to the south side but didn't show up on any of the locator's maps. Still put a good scare in us and I was pretty mad for a long time.

dayexco

gmads, it's one thing to knock out a communications network...in MY opinion, quite another to put you and your employees lives in peril because of a mislocate of something as dangerous as a 24" gas main. you can call me a dick if you want, but i'm going into the utilities office monday morning, and i want some answers...here, you hit a frickin single pair telephone drop, they want $250 to repair it. we hit a 3 phase power line last year they "mislocated" by about 15' it was directional bored, no sign of any excavation....the arc took a chunk out of the cutting edge on my bucket, thank GOD, nobody was touching the machine at the time, and all they can say is "whoops", we missed that one, didn't we?

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

rino1494

My father-in-law works for OSHA and he wants to nail the utility companies for mis-marking lines. It happens quite a bit and they basically don't think that it is a big deal.

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