Safe Digging

If you own your own home, you may decide to do many of your maintenance, landscaping, and repair projects on your own. However, before taking on any project, it is important to be aware of any risks that are involved. In cities and residential areas, there are many different cables and pipe lines that run underground between homes and main lines. If you begin a digging project without first determining where these lines are located, you run the risk of serious injury or death through a gas line explosion.

Before You Dig

Prior to beginning any project that involves digging, whether as small as planting a tree or as large as building a deck, it is important that you follow proper safety procedures to avoid hitting cables and gas lines.

• Contact your utility company. Tell them that you plan to start a project that involves digging and that you need your property evaluated. You can call a local number or call 8-1-1, the nationwide safe digging hotline.
• Your utility company will send, at no charge, a utility professional to visit your property and map out each of your cables and pipes with paint and flags.
• Each color of paint or flag designates a different type of utility line. Be sure that the professional adequately explains the difference between each line and the dangers of digging near each.

Digging without proper knowledge of your utility lines can have severe consequences. While cutting through a telephone wire may cut off communication throughout your block, a collision between your shovel and a gas pipeline can cause a massive explosion. Always call before you dig to keep yourself, your family, and your neighborhood safe.

Contact Us

If you or a loved one has been injured in an explosion, contact the gas line explosion lawyers of Habush Habush & Rottier S.C. ® at 800-242-2874.