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Today's Helpful Hint for the Happy Homeowner is "How to Cut Through a Buried Utility Cable."
I am an expert on this subject, having unknowingly directed our excavator to cut clean through a buried C&P telephone cable as thick as a banana.
I asked the excavator, Terry the Dirt Man, to widen the slag driveway to the ancestral Miller family home. My mother, Ol' Food, lives there. She has been agitating for a wider driveway because her friends who still drive are getting up in years, and she wanted to make backing out onto Gas Valley Road less of an adventure for them. Backing out is not the optimal way for any driver, let alone little old lady drivers, to access Gas Valley Road, but it sometimes is done, and when they turn the wrong way and back over the hill I have to get the tractor to pull them back onto the road.
Since the excavator was here anyway, digging a foundation for my sister Col. Peggy's addition to the farmhouse, this seemed a golden opportunity to widen the driveway.
The short slag driveway cuts diagonally across a slope, so that to the left, upon entering, there is a bank, while on the right, the slope drops away. Ol' Food wanted to widen it on the dropoff side. I explained to her that you can't cut the driveway wider where the dirt isn't, you can only cut it wider where the dirt is. I don't think she completely believed me, but she eventually gave in because excavating is "a man thing."
My instructions to Terry the Dirt Man and his faithful sidekick Wally, who drives the dump truck, went like this:
Me: Mom wants to widen the driveway but we can't cut any at the bottom there (pointing) without risking undercutting the telephone pole. I think if we take a little off further up there (pointing) the only thing you'll hit is roots from the big pine tree, and it won't hurt the pine, I don't think.
Terry and Wally: Yah.
With that all straightened out I left them and went around back to work on another project.
I had barely begun when Wally walked up with a hangdog look on his face.
"We done a bad thing, George," he said, or words to that effect.
Sure enough, there, sticking out of the bank where Terry had started his cut, were two frayed ends of what was obviously an underground telephone cable. It had been buried not more than 12 inches below the surface. I had no idea it was there.
Terry the Dirt Man was white as a ghost and his eyes were glazing over. "I have to go home and lie down now," he said softly, and left.
Sidekick Wally clucked sadly and shook his head.
"Too durn bad," he said. "You know, they can charge the property owner a thousand dollars a minute if you cut a utility line and didn't call first to have them mark the lines. You're supposed to call even if you dig a post hole. Now, if you call first and they mark them wrong and you cut one, it's their fault, but if you don't call first and cut one, it's your fault and they can charge as much as they want, depending on how many customers it knocked out and how long they're out.
"Yessir, it's a downright shame to see people work all their lives and then lose everything just because they didn't call the durn utility number."
Ol' Food had come outside. I explained what happened. She had a look on her face like someone had died.
I tried to be upbeat. "If they charge us too much we'll just hire a lawyer," I told her. "That line wasn't buried deep enough and it wasn't marked or anything. I think we've got a case."
"Oh, it can be laying right on top of the ground," Wally said. "You cut it, you're responsible. Yessir, a durn shame."
I walked into the farmhouse and picked up the phone, holding my breath and wishing as hard as I could wish. Please, please, Pul-eeeease let there be a dial tone.
There was! There was a dial tone!
I called my house and Honey answered. I called the neighbors up and down the valley and they answered.
I ran outside and shouted the good news.
"Must be a trunk line, then," said Wally. "I was afraid of that. Did you call the utility company yet? The longer you wait, the worse it could be."
I ran back into the house and grabbed the phone book. In the front of the book there was a prominent listing and an 800 number for "Call Before You Dig," but I saw nothing for "Call After You Already Dug and Have Cut Something and are Ready to Commit Suicide."
I dialed the 800 number, which connected me to the Miss Utility line in Charleston.
"We done a bad thing," I told Miss Utility. "We didn't know that cable was there, honest. We was just widenin' the driveway. Please don't take the farm. It has been in the family a hundred years."
Miss Utility said she would immediately contact the telephone, electric and gas companies so they can check their lines.
"All we cut was a telephone cable," I protested. "The electric is all overhead, and the gas company took their line out of here 30 years ago and gave us electric appliances. We'd love to have a gas line but they won't give us one. It can't be a gas line, it's just the telephone, but our phone is working fine, so I don't know what it is."
Miss Utility said she had to notify all the utilities.
The electric company sent a man out right away. Yep, he said, that's a telephone cable.
Columbia Gas called but didn't come out. There are no gas lines there, they informed me.
Two days later a telephone company man came out. Yep, he said, that's a telephone cable. An old abandoned telephone cable.
Whew!
My advice is, call before you dig, but if you don't and you cut into a line, pray that it's an abandoned one.