Plan to dig? There’s a number for that, Southwest Gas initiative advises

For astir Nevadans, Aug. 11 is conscionable different day.

Ask Dennis Bott Jr., an head astatine Southwest Gas Corp., though, and he’ll person had it circled connected his calendar for months.

“It’s similar my Super Bowl,” helium said Tuesday.

That’s due to the fact that Aug. 11 is 811 Day, an inaugural geared astatine reminding radical to telephone 811 earlier they excavation into the ground. Southwest Gas volition people this year’s day with a “Skate Knight” lawsuit connected Wednesday from 6-8 p.m. astatine Lifeguard Arena. The escaped lawsuit volition see crystal skating and schoolhouse supplies giveaways.

The extremity of 811 Day is to punctual radical that they should ever telephone earlier opening immoderate projects that impact digging connected their property, Bott Jr. said.

When you telephone 811, technicians volition beryllium connected tract wrong 2 days to people the areas that incorporate state lines. That lets radical cognize wherever it’s harmless to dig, and wherever it’s important to debar utilizing large tools. Digging without knowing wherever state lines are tin origin state leaks oregon powerfulness outages.

On Monday, technicians fielded a fig of 811 calls. One progressive a homeowner who wanted to works a histrion successful their beforehand lawn, truthful a technician scanned the country and planted tiny flags connected a rocky spot adjacent the house, denoting wherever the state lines were. The markers volition enactment up for 30 days, during which the task should start.

Another telephone was from the h2o territory and ran nether a residential street, truthful technicians utilized yellowish spray overgarment to people wherever the state lines were located. Spray overgarment connected streets is organized by circumstantial colors: yellowish means gas; greenish means sewer; reddish means power; bluish means water; pinkish refers to surveys and orangish means connection infrastructure.

Anthony Dixon, a supervisor for Southwest Gas, said they person arsenic galore arsenic 12,000 calls for work each day. A technician typically responds to astir 20 per day, but that fig tin fluctuate importantly based connected the benignant of telephone they get.

Speaking from the Southwest Gas offices successful northeast Las Vegas, Bott Jr. urged Las Vegans to marque definite they telephone 811 whenever they’re readying to excavation into a caller project.

“Most radical don’t recognize however that inferior infrastructure works,” helium said. “But underground, there’s a full web of inferior infrastructure that we trust connected each day.”

Contact Jonah Dylan astatine jdylan@reviewjournal.com. Follow @TheJonahDylan connected Twitter.