Page 17 - Arkansas 811 Magazine 2018 Issue 3

caused damage to their home, business past that we dldn't know about. I'm

or equipment. lt was during those surprised that there's not more talk

investigations that he began to notice about this problem," Mickey said.

a trend 7 several houses tltat suttered "It seems like a rash of these have

electrical tires recently had toundation happened in the last year."

‘’‘’‘“k '‘’’“‘‘’"““d‘ since this problem is relatively new

"Last year, I saw maybe a dozen to the 811 community and electrical

fnundntion repairs that caused companies, Mickey wasn't sure or a tail.

damage to homes one way or another, sate procedure tltat would prevent this

sometimes quite catastrophic 7 in sort of disaster trom happening. But he ‘ \

some cases the house burned down," did say that communication will be key J J F 0
Mickey said. "one house had to the success ui tunire initiatives.

tounclation work that caused it and two . .

other houses to burn in a cul-de-sac ~ 335;;;h;§:;s;§;;;:';§:3:gt;§f11 .

Mickey said that during investigations council meeting was to consider adding \ I
he's seen several instances when a intormation about inundztlnn repairs .. ,

house gets iacked up, it causes a wire to iuture tickets, alerting utility owner / » u — _.
to pull out ui a lug in the meter socket, operators that this type or work would —— V.’ J .
causing a short. But sometimes the be done. _ _ 'x_‘\_ V; /"1’ , - i
"’“’“ “'2 "‘°'° “°"“"‘““‘“d‘ "lta contractor would contact us ahead p n d
"The inundztlnn repair that caused ui time, we'd roll a truck out with one - '

the three house fires on one cul.de.sac ui our design engineers 7iust like we

pulled the energized conductor loose do when a customer wants new service

and down into the ground going into or an upgrade," he said. "we will look 1,

the house," he said. "since everything at it and put into play countermeasures

is connected to ground, and the ground to allow them do what they need to do

is ultimately connected through water without any hazard or danger Any

lines back to the city main thats how utility would be happy to do that."

;:l§‘r’r‘fl:“’n‘;‘;‘:l”‘h: some uf the less-reputable fuundarilm

surprisingly, the damage duesn'I digging activity rather than handling

always happen while the toundation the ticket request themselves, which also

work is underway 7 the hazard can complicates things, according to Mickey to ta| k W a n
linger undetected tor months. And many of the fuundntiun repair

"we had an incident last year where “_°“‘l’f“L7' ‘ml: }‘l°"',‘?"l“"“f“l: °‘g“ “M E X C 3 Val 0 T?
the house had been leveled and the "'i"“ Pg” ‘ “ 51 i“ "E" ‘ 2 °‘;“‘’““‘‘“

contractor had been finished for about 51;:‘{MD::‘f:n(1:d?;“Y;;:‘:nC:':,hm

""2" '“‘’'‘“‘='- They did ‘he ‘”‘"“ electric lines were dnmgaged andcaused 8 3 5 "/ f

. r . o 0

during a dry season. During the next gm .

big rain the ground got saturated, “ 8 1 1 M a g a 2 I n e
causing the ground to swell and the He also mentioned that it's likely that r e a d e I. S a re
house to raise up a little more 7 and not many leveling contractors are aware

that was the straw that broke the that this problem can occur, as its e x c a v a I 0 rs a n d
camel's back. It caused damage to the certainly not something that happens on y e S y 0 U C a n
customer's appliances." every iob ' h t '1

Mickey thinks this problem is more "There may be toundation people out r e a C 9 m
widespread and common than one there who only know this is going f0 I‘ I e S S t h a n
might expect, given that not every on because they've experienced it 5 C e n ts .
incident is investigated to its end. it themselves. If they've never been taced

a customer doesn't make a claim that with this, they might not know," he said.

coserv is responsible tor an incident, H , h h . h. _

his investigations are typically wrapped V“ *9“ “"‘°‘“”““' “"‘“5‘ "

. _ _ type uf work done, make sure your , _ _ , ,

“f E‘°“Y' 3’ ”‘°’fh“‘“h“"“Y “°““’ contractor is aware that they are M3” * '-' "7 5'79-“'9 ”‘

D D e! Inc) 21115 at ave DHE . ’ . .

undmmi 3 responsible for submitting a ticket to G ,.e 9 J O ,7 E. 5

B11 betore they dig and request that

"we have an outside contractor that they also contact the electric company 5 0 1 —4 72 —O 7 '7 5
comes in and gives us erperttorensic to ensure this type of damage doesn't , 7 ,_ , g V
assistance on certain cases, so we've occur 9”’ *‘i<‘~",“ '5 7 7 "" '3 9" 3 ‘ ""5 ‘- ‘3 ""
learned a lot more about this. rm sure .

we have had a bunch ui these in the Oh" W‘ “W” Md ““ 5"‘ P"“‘- .

20191 lssuefl tuaasas 511 Magazine . 15