Dial Before Digging: Oklahoma Natural Gas Offers Help When Replacing Utility Lines

August 11th is also known as 811 Day, which reminds everyone to practice safe digging to protect underground utility lines.

The June storms left a lot of people with questions about how to get rid of debris, especially uprooted trees. Chad Previch with Oklahoma Natural Gas says the people who decided to call 811 before doing any digging made the right decision.

After the June 18th storms, Oklahoma Natural Gas received a lot of 811 calls from people who wanted to replace their trees, fence posts, and other things that had damage. A lot of the calls they received after the storm were about damaged meters.

Previch suggests people look at their meter and make sure there isn't any debris or trees that could damage the meter. If someone is doing some digging around your home and they hit a line you should immediately leave the area, call 911, and call 811 directly after.

Previch says ONG is projected to have 700,000 811 calls this year and he believes that is a good thing.

"What we want to avoid happening is for some kind of underground line to be impacted and in that case, there's probably going to be an interruption in service for you or even your neighborhood. So, we want to avoid that and what we call being a safe digging hero those are the people who are contacting 811 beforehand and having those lines marked,” Previch says.

For more information about safe digging and the purpose of 811 CLICK HERE