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Tampa Electric Reminds Homeowners to Call 811 Before Planting Trees this Spring

Construction work and DIY yard projects are on the rise, and you need to know what’s below

With longer days and temperate springtime weather, homeowners are spending more time planting and working on other outdoor projects. Tampa Electric would like to remind Floridians it is important to call 811 at least two business days before they start digging.

Throughout April, Sunshine 811, Tampa Electric and other utilities are promoting National Safe Digging Month. The campaign is designed to remind Florida’s residents of the network of wires, cables and pipelines located underground, and often closer to the surface than you might think. Striking one of these underground utility lines while digging could result in loss of electric, natural gas, water or communications and cable services, injure you or others, and potentially result in fines and repair costs.

A national survey recently showed that 3 in 4 U.S. homeowners plan to dig on their property this year – but only 60 percent of them plan to call 811 before they begin their projects. When homeowners forget to call 811 before digging, they run the risk of damaging their own service lines. When excavators don’t follow safe digging practices, the impact is much greater – hundreds of residents and businesses can lose utility service from just one hit line.

Tampa Electric has a team of locators who visit job sites and mark underground power lines around homes and businesses – but only if there’s a call to 811 to alert them. In 2022, they responded to about 154,000 requests. Since the team’s inception in 2016, the company has seen the amount of damage to TECO’s underground equipment reduced by more than 90 percent.

One free, simple phone call to 811 makes it easy for Sunshine 811 to notify all appropriate utility companies of your intent to dig. Here are some tips to remember:

Visit sunshine811.com or dos5.net for more information about safe digging.

Tampa Electric, one of Florida’s largest investor-owned electric utilities, serves about 830,000 customers in West Central Florida. Tampa Electric is a subsidiary of Emera Inc., a geographically diverse energy and services company headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

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