Outages & Safety
Call Before You Dig

Call 811® Before You Dig

811® is a national number designated by the Federal Communications Commission to help protect home owners and professional excavators from unintentionally hitting underground utility lines while working on digging projects.

Call 811® at least two full business days before digging to start the process of getting your utility lines marked. By calling the FCC designated 811® number, callers in North Carolina are connected with the state’s one-call center. A representative from the one-call center will ask you for your location and description of your digging job.

The representative will then notify Pitt & Greene EMC and other affected utility companies who will in turn send someone out to mark the approximate location of your lines at the proposed dig site. You can follow up on your request by checking the “positive response” link on the state’s 811® website to see what utilities are in your area and who is responding to your request.

Once your underground lines have been marked, you will know the approximate location of your utility lines and can dig safely.

Approximately 165,000 underground utilities are damaged each year by digging. One out of every three incidents is caused by someone who did not call 811® before digging. Knowing approximately where underground utility lines are buried before each digging project helps to prevent these situations.

Look Up and Live

Electric Safety Requires Everybody’s Energy

Electricity provides necessities and luxuries that certainly add to the quality of our lives. However, carelessness with electricity can unfortunately result in burns, injuries or death.

Similar to lightning, electricity is always striving to find a path to the ground. Should any part of your body come in contact directly or indirectly with an energized object, you have provided that pathway to ground and therefore, are in immediate danger.

Safety Rules

Pitt & Greene EMC works to keep power lines in safe condition. Still we need your help and encourage you to remember the following safety rules.

  • Consider any and all electric lines dangerous and “live.” Never raise objects (e.g., farm equipment, metal pipes, kites, ladders and antennas) up without looking first.
  • Don’t attempt to raise or move electric lines.
  • If your power lines are underground, call Pitt and Greene EMC before digging.
  • Report to Pitt and Greene any potential power line hazard, including trees growing into the lines.
  • Always stay away from power lines on the ground and warn others to do so too. Call Pitt and Greene EMC immediately.
  • Never touch a person or object that is in contact with a power line.
  • If a power line hits your car while you’re in it, try to drive away. If you can’t move the car, stay inside until help arrives. If the car catches on fire, jump clear and make sure you do not touch the metal of the car and the ground at the same time.
  • Never let hoses, sprinklers or irrigation systems spray water on power lines.
  • Instruct children to fly kites in an open field and not climb in trees that have power lines running in or near them.

Electricity is a safe, clean and efficient energy source when used sensibly. But all it takes is just one careless moment to show how deadly it can be. Don’t put your life on the line – Look up and live!