Had a close call with a power line on a site in Tacoma last month

We were setting steel for a new warehouse, and I was swinging a 40-foot beam into place. The spotter was giving me the all clear, but I caught a flicker of something in my cab mirror. I looked up and saw the main load line was maybe 10 feet from a 7,200 volt line I hadn't even seen when I set up. My old boss always said 'you're the last check,' so I stopped the swing right there. Turns out the site plans were wrong about where that line ran. I had to shut the whole lift down for two hours while the power company came out to confirm the clearance. It rattled me pretty good. Has anyone else had a site plan be that wrong about something so big?

3 comments

3 Comments

joseph_murray810d ago

Man, that's a real gut check. I once dug a trench based on a plan that swore a gas line was six feet to the left. My bucket found it about six INCHES down instead. I nearly needed a new pair of pants, not just a site shutdown.

mason_flores2110d ago

Read about a crew in Texas last year hitting a fiber optic line marked three feet deep. Turned out it was barely under the sod, some old record from the 90s. The whole block lost internet for a day. Makes you wonder how many of those maps are just guesses someone wrote down decades ago.

clark.adam9d ago

It's the digital maps that get me now. We had a utility locator come out with a tablet, showing a water main deep underground in bright green. His screen said it was all clear to dig. The backhoe hit a six-inch cast iron line from 1912 that wasn't on any digital file, only a brittle paper map in the city archive. The tech just shrugged and said his system didn't have it loaded. Makes you trust your gut over the glowing screen every time.