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Safety Focus
Remember to Dial 8-1-1 Before Digging
Remember to Dial 8-1-1 Before Digging
Throughout April—National Safe Digging Month—EEI and our member companies worked to educate customers on the importance of always calling 8-1-1 at least 72 hours before digging for a construction, landscaping, or gardening project.
Remember these tips:
- You must call 8-1-1 even before starting small projects, like installing a fence or a mailbox. When you call 8-1-1, the call center will alert your local electric, natural gas, telephone, and water companies, which will mark the approximate locations of underground utility lines in your project area with paint or flags.
- Be sure to plan ahead: it generally takes two to three days for companies to respond. Stay at least two feet away from the utility line markings while digging.
Common Ground Alliance, an association that works to prevent damage to underground utility infrastructure, estimates that, this year, more than 11 million homeowners will risk unintentionally damaging buried utilities by not calling 8-1-1 before a digging project. Hitting a buried line is a serious safety hazard.
By making a simple call, you can help prevent injuries, property damage, and outages.