INDIAN LAND, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) – The York County Natural Gas Authority says it came across a close call along Charlotte Highway in Indian Land.
The problem being a 20 inch flag stake put in the ground right above a major gas transmission pipeline.
Officials say a worker, luckily found it before it became a problem.
CN2’s Zane Cina is learning how this mistake could have led to a large scale gas leak and evacuation of the area.
Amy Cassidy with York County Natural Gas said in an interview that this type of risk can be easily avoided just by calling 811 before digging anywhere.
“Any sort of impingement in the Earth, when you think about a sign, or even a mailbox post, putting in fences, digging a new deck for your yard, anything that’s going under ground can damage some sort of utility that’s there, whether it’s gas, power, or water,” Cassidy said.
Gas officials say luckily all they had to do this time was remove the stakes from the ground in order to solve the problem. Unfortunately that is not always the case, and according to the gas authority in just the past two weeks alone, it’s been called to repair damages caused by improper digging a total of nine different times.
York County Natural Gas says in 2022 it received more than 50,000 locator requests on natural gas calls alone, adding each of it’s locators handle about 40 calls a day.
Staff members say they prefer to see high call volumes like that as it means mistakes are being avoided.
