Someone who didn't call dig alert.....

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Fulthrotl

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
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HB, CA (19 Hrs. 22 Min. from Winged Horses)
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E
this really only relates to electrical safety insofar as many of us dig holes,
trenches, and whatnot, in our desperate search for places to hide conduits...:D

and we all know about dig alert, but what can be way out in the middle of
nowhere? how about a high pressure gas line backbone?

i don't know the exact particulars of who did this one, but it was supposedly
a ground rod being driven.

somebody on here must live near where this happened... i'd be interested in knowing
the true particulars of what happened, if anyone recognizes this.


randy

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Rockyd

Rockyd

Senior Member
Location
Nevada
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Retired after 40 years as an electrician.
Not sure, but did a job in the back country of Utah,where the boat shed needed a feeder and panel. Saw an old delapidated sign at the corner of the property warning about gas line in the neighborhood.

Long story short, called the number on the sign. A company representative came out, located the line, and was present the whole time I trenched. Told me the line may not have been to full depth because of age, etc, but that it still flowed 10,000 barrels of oil per day!
 
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wireguru

Senior Member
I remember one where some idiot killed himself, he was digging in a utility easement on his property, there were poles and overhead lines so he figured it was safe to dig -well the overhead lines were transmission and all the local distribution was underground.
 
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wawireguy

Senior Member
I would think a high presure gas line would be marked as such above ground. I'd also think that it would have a obvious right away. In WA/ID it would. That pick looks like a bomb went off. Doubtful that someone wasn't killed.
 
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nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
wawireguy said:
I would think a high presure gas line would be marked as such above ground. I'd also think that it would have a obvious right away. In WA/ID it would. That pick looks like a bomb went off. Doubtful that someone wasn't killed.
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In MA and NH there is a 30" 850PSI Gas Transmission line. It has at least 30 feet clearance on each side. Even if there is no sign visible, you know its there.
 
Jraef

Jraef

Moderator, OTD
Staff member
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
That would have been an odd place for a ground rod... but we know now it had nothing to do with that.

There was a very similar "back hoe" incident to this in Walnut Creek CA a few years back. It happened because the records from the pipeline company, Kinder Morgan, had the pipe in a slightly different location. There was loss of life and serious burns in that one. There was a boom in that one and I heard it 13 miles away.

"EBMUD workers killed in Jet Fuel pipeline explosion."
 
mxslick

mxslick

Senior Member
Location
SE Idaho
While working with an EC some time back, I was assisting as my co-worker drove in a 10' ground rod for a commercial site. We had called Dig Alert who had marked the 16kv primary underground.

As we got about 6-7 feet of that rod in, I noticed what looked like smoke coming up around the rod..followed a few seconds later by a huge bang from a pole top nearby.

I looked up and noticed the cutouts blown for that 16kv feeder.....

Yep, D/A missed the mark and we spiked that feeder the hard way.

Luckily we were both wearing gloves (not voltage rated) and it was dry enough that neither of us got bit.

D/A got bit however for the repair bill as it was their mistake.
 
drbond24

drbond24

Senior Member
Location
Barboursville, West Virginia
mxslick said:
Luckily we were both wearing gloves (not voltage rated) and it was dry enough that neither of us got bit.
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I don't think you get 'bit' by 16 kV. I believe that 'killed' would be the word. :cool:

As long as we're telling digging stories, I've got one of my own. I was a designer/construction manager for a project to build a warehouse on a naval base. The warehouse was going to be placed very close to a buried 5 kV line, but the customers insisted that this was the location they wanted. The public works guys on the base were very careful to mark the theoretical location of the 5 kV line since the ground ring for the new building was going to be about 6' from it if I remember correctly. When I went back to check on the progress of the digging, somebody had trenched the entire 120' for the ground ring on that side of the building while chewing up buried danger tape the whole time. This tape was supposed to be 6" above the buried 5 kV line. I told the foreman that whoever was riding that trencher was either very brave or very very stupid and I'd love for them to ask me which one I thought it was. :)
 
mivey

mivey

Senior Member
drbond24 said:
...The public works guys on the base were very careful to mark the theoretical location of the 5 kV line since the ground ring for the new building was going to be about 6' from it if I remember correctly. When I went back to check on the progress of the digging, somebody had trenched the entire 120' for the ground ring on that side of the building while chewing up buried danger tape the whole time. This tape was supposed to be 6" above the buried 5 kV line. I told the foreman that whoever was riding that trencher was either very brave or very very stupid and I'd love for them to ask me which one I thought it was. :)
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They used the 5 kV locate as a trenching guide? Forget about the trencher dude, what about the foreman?
 
drbond24

drbond24

Senior Member
Location
Barboursville, West Virginia
mivey said:
They used the 5 kV locate as a trenching guide?
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They assumed the 5 kV locate was 100% correct and ignored the warning tape being chewed up.

mivey said:
Forget about the trencher dude, what about the foreman?
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Yea, that too. :D

In the end, no one was upset about it but me so they went right along constructing the warehouse.

All those crazy stories you hear about how wasteful and silly the government is are absolutely true.
 
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