Columbia Gas Urges 811 Awareness During Safe Digging Month
ZANESVILLE, OH – April is National Safe Digging Month and Columbia Gas is reminding Ohioans why it’s important to call 811 before breaking ground on any outdoor project.
Erica Chronaberry, the Director of Communications with Columbia Gas of Ohio, said it’s important to call 811 before you start a project, even if you have done a project within the last year.
She said you may think you know where your electric and gas lines are, but things tend to move around as time goes on which could cause some problems.
“Calling 811 is important because what’s going to happen is a professional locator will come out and they’re going to mark all underground utility lines, not just natural gas but all other utility lines.” Chronaberry said. “They’re going to mark it with paint or flags, or both, and the reason they do that is because when you start digging, obviously you don’t want to hit one of those underground utility lines, it’s a safety risk. You know, you would never want to dig into a live gas line, you don’t want to go into a live electric line, so the main thing is it’s a safety concern.”
Chronaberry said after you call 811 and provide some general information, a professional locator will come out to check your property lines.
She said to call at least 2 days before you plan to begin your project, just to give the locator time to do their job, which will save you and possibly your neighbors some headaches.
“If you do hit an underground, natural gas line, you want to leave the area.” Chronaberry said. “You want to stop what you’re doing, leave the area, call 911, call Columbia Gas, so we can come out and take care of that. It’s always a safety concern, I will say, in addition to that, not only is it a safety concern, but if you hit an underground natural gas line, you could cause an outage to your entire neighborhood or even beyond that, depending on what type of line you hit.”
For more information about safe digging month, you can head to Columbia Gas of Ohio’s website.
