Everyone knows 911 as the emergency number. It’s what you dial when there’s an accident, crisis or other incident requiring urgent attention. It’s how you save a life and prevent or mitigate damage to people and property.
But many Americans don’t know there’s another number that can help prevent accidents, protect your property, safeguard your community and maybe even save your own life. That other number is 811.
Dialing 811 (or visiting 811BeforeYouDig.com) connects you with what’s known as the “one-call” center for your area. Making this contact before any digging, from major construction to backyard DIY projects, will notify your local utility companies who will dispatch crews to mark their utility lines – those little colored flags and paint marks you see on the ground.
Why does this matter? Nearly 200,000 times each year in the U.S., buried power, water, internet, natural gas, and other utility lines are damaged by digging. It not only costs the U.S. more than $30 billion each year, but risks power outages, flooding and road damage and major disruptions to critical services like 911 centers.
Across the country, we’ve seen what can happen when these risks are ignored. This spring in Missouri, a five year-old was killed and his family was injured when an unmarked natural gas line was struck. In Nebraska, damage to a water sprinkler line caused a fire that disrupted 911 service around the state.
These may seem like outliers, but with more than 20 million miles of buried utilities running underground across the nation, they happen every day. In fact, a buried utility line is damaged by digging once every three minutes on average across America. That’s more than 500 times each day that disaster can strike – anywhere, anytime, including in your neighborhood.
Damaging underground utility lines may seem like a far-fetched problem only professionals and contractors need worry about. The truth is that many utility lines are buried just inches below the surface. According to Common Ground Alliance industry data, home improvement projects like landscaping and fence-building are among the most common causes of utility strikes because the lines weren’t located before breaking ground.
Spending on local infrastructure and development projects continues to grow. Local, state, and federal spending on water infrastructure and transportation projects like roads and bridges amounted to more than $600 billion last year. And the demand for AI data centers is growing exponentially, with the power demand for these energy-hungry facilities expected to increase 50 percent by 2027.
All this new development creates more opportunities for damage to the buried utilities already running underground.
Whether 811 Day in August, National Safe Digging Month in April, or any other day of the year, you can help protect what matters most by encouraging your neighbors to contact 811 before doing any digging – and reminding their contractors to do the same. The call is free, easy, and in many places, it’s the law.
Before your next outdoor project, don’t assume you know what’s underground — assume you don’t.
