Page 16 - Tennessee 811 Magazine 2022 Issue 3

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tell a story. Make sure that photos are gathered of the remaining locate marks, photos of the damaged facility and photos showing measurements from existing marks. You may need to use
a string line to connect marks if they are destroyed at the area of excavation. Using a hit kit is extremely beneficial in taking damage photos. It is also a good practice to review the post locate and pre-excavation photos prior to taking the damage photos, so that you can take them at the same angles as the original photos.
So now that you have completed the investigative photos, how do you use them to determine liability? Using both the post locate or pre-excavation photos together with the damage investigation photos, you should be able to find the photos of the marks in the area where the damage occurred and match them side by side and complete the story.
I want to take a moment to talk about gas damages specifically. If you find yourself in a situation where a gas
line has been struck, DO NOT take photos until gas has been shut off and the gas utility has deemed the area
safe. Cameras can serve as a source of ignition and may ignite blowing gas in the area. Always follow the instructions from the gas department and or emergency responders on site. Along with that, other utilities bring their own dangers, so we must follow the direction of the utility owner on-site when completing an investigation. Struck water lines can cause unstable soil and possible trench collapse if standing too close to the edge of a trench. Damaged electric lines can cause burns and electrocution if you come into contact with them. Always use caution when working around damaged facilities.
In your mind, are digital cameras an important tool in your best practices? Is there benefit to having these photos to document the work you are doing? I hope that I was able to shed some light on the importance of cameras and the role they play in not only locating, but as an excavator, how beneficial pre- excavation photos can be.
As always, Tennessee 811 thanks each and every one of you that provide locate services across Tennessee, for the work that you do day in and day out to protect our communities and prevent damage to underground facilities. Your work is important and does not go unnoticed.
when taking post locate photos is a picture of the address, street signs or some other identifiable object that can place those photos at a specific location. The old saying, “this picture could
be anywhere,” still rings true today. Pictures looking straight down at the ground are not beneficial to anyone.
Guidance for Excavators
If you are an excavator, photographs are just as important to the work that you do. As an excavator, you should always be taking pre-excavation photos. This gives you documentation of what the job site looked like before any excavation began. The first step for an excavator should be to check positive response to ensure all utilities have responded, make a second notice one call if necessary and finally, take your pre-excavation photos.
Just like we talked about in the post locate photos, the excavator should
be sure to include all marks in their photos with permanent structures in the background. These pictures are going to be beneficial if an incident does occur and an underground facility gets damaged. By having pre-excavation photos, you will easily be able to show if a utility was marked or not. The excavator will also be able to use these photos to help determine if a facility
was mismarked. We will talk more on this later when we talk about damage investigation photos.
Damage Investigation
So let’s talk about damages. Of course,
it is the goal of everyone involved in damage prevention to not cause damage to existing underground facilities. While this is a great goal for everyone to work toward, we all know that damages occur. With those damages comes liability. Somebody has to take liability and pay the costs incurred to fix the damaged facility. So once again, this is where the photos come into play.
We talked earlier about taking good quality photos both as the locator and as the excavator and this is why it is so important to have good documentation. Those photos that were taken when the locate was completed, and the photos taken by the excavator before the job began, are going to be brought to the table to help determine where liability lies during claims resolution with the utility.
Before we talk about those photos that have already been taken, we must talk about the damage investigation and what photos must be taken. When a damage does occur, once again we are going to rely on our digital camera to
14 • Tennessee811 2022, Issue 3