The Backhoe, The Internet's Natural Enemy

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Experts say last week's Sprint outage is a reminder that with all the attention paid to computer viruses and the latest Windows security holes, the most vulnerable threads in America's critical infrastructures lie literally beneath our feet. A study issued last month by the Common Ground Alliance, or CGA -- an industry group comprised of utilities and construction companies -- calculated that there were more than 675,000 excavation accidents in 2004 in which underground cables or pipelines were damaged." I estimate that one third of those accidents occured within the 5 block radius surrounding my office.

Comments

Good logic

[pvt_medic]

So the DHS wants to protect this infrastructure by making the location of such lines protected. Which of course is not going to help the situation because when you call Dig Safe they wont know whats under you. So you run the risk of severing more cables, and you run the risk of injury to the workers. I tip my hats to them.

Should increase liability / penalties

[macklin01]

According to the article, in 2004, nearly half of the accidents were caused by on-site workers not checking with the proper support numbers for underground cables and/or pipelines.

I wonder just how much those incidents would be reduced if companies were fined a stiff penalty for digging without calling these numbers. The type of astronomical fines/penalties levied against virus writers would seem very appropriate in these cases, given the type of economic damage that can be caused by telecom outages.

I'm glad to see that a national calling center is being established (similar to 911, according to the article). Now, it will be easier for workers to call. But I still think we need the other half: better (financial) incentive to make those calls in the first place. -- Paul

Backhoes Don't Care

[Ranger]

Backhoes don't care. Why? I'll relate a similar wire cut story. I was called out to our local airport to fix a problem with one of the airlines ground to air radios. This lets ground crews communicate with the flight crew. It is separate from air traffic control. In one room was the radio. In another room several doors down was a monitor speaker that could hear the conversation. I determined there was nothing wrong with the monitor speaker and nothing wrong with the audio and most likely a broken wire. The room separating the radio and speaker was quite large. The wire was run through the ceiling. I had to lift up many a ceiling tile to trace the wire and find the break.

I found the break. The wire had been cut and tied off. There was barely enough wire to splice the two back together. Once repaired the monitor speaker worked again. I was told later by the airline employees, airport facility workers had redone the ceiling in that one room. To me it appeared the workers found the wire in the way of their job, didn't know or didn't care what it was hooked to and simply cut it and tied it off out of the way.

Backhoe operators probably have the same mentality. They want to get their work done. If they cut a cable, it doesn't affect them. They are just doing their job. To solve this problem I would recommend burying fiber next to gas lines. The fiber should be coated with a material that bursts into flame 30 seconds after it exposed to air or cut. Not only will the backhoe operator cut the cable he'll break the gas line as well. The 30 seconds delay is to build up enough gas for a nice explosion. Sure it'll be a mess, but that's one backhoe operator who won't cut any more fiber.

Re:Nothing is for certain...

[xsbellx]

You obviously have NO experience in the construction trade. For that matter I guess you have very little experience with things moving as a result of frost. Things burried several decades ago can easily move several feet

There is NO contractor in the world that would accept the responsiblity and/or liablity of locating utility assets (gas, telecom, water, electric and so forth). Each utility provider will dispatch specially trained and equipped technicians to perform this service. The "locater" must be accurate within certain tolerances or the utility assumes the liablity associated with any distruption/repairs including contractor's equipment that was damaged.

Speaking from experience, I have seen a 60 inch water main broken (locator was wrong), a large telecom cable (something insane like 5,000 pairs) running to a 72 story office building (excavator problem) and countless single line telecom cables (just trying to find the damn things using a shovel but electrical tape works wonders).

The short answer is, you can have all the centralized documentation/maps whatever that you want but no contractor will ever put a shovel into the ground until the utilities come on-site and say "You can dig here but not there".