The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating what caused this month’s deadly explosion in western Missouri’s Lexington that killed a child and seriously injured his sister and father.
Kansas City television station KMBC reports a subcontractor installing fiber line in Lexington submitted a routine dig request to Missouri 811 five days before the explosion happened. Missouri law requires anyone planning to dig to contact Missouri 811 at least three working days before excavation begins. The subcontractor appears to have complied with that requirement here. Missouri 811 executive director Randy Norden tells 939 the Eagle that this requirement is important:
“So this is a good opportunity to connect with everybody and remind them that it is the law in Missouri to contact Missouri 811 before you did every dig, every time. It doesn’t matter how small or shallow,” Mr. Norden says.
April is national safe digging month. Mr. Norden also says Missouri 811’s heart goes out to the Cunningham family for their loss and pain, along with the town of Lexington. He also notes they keep in their minds the human beings involved with this excavation and the human beings who put the paint on the ground to locate.
You’re now being urged more than ever before to contact Missouri 811 before you dig. State law requires anyone planning to dig to contact Missouri 811 at least three working days before excavation begins. Missouri 811’s Norden says Missouri is starting to implement its $1.7-billion federal broadband allocation. Mr. Norden tells 939 the Eagle that these projects will require extensive drilling and trenching:
“It’s getting crowded underground. When this law was created in 1985, you could legitimately stand in places in Missouri and go there’s nothing underground here. That’s not the case anymore,” Mr. Norden says.
He says April’s national safe digging month carries new urgency this year because of the infrastructure projects scheduled to begin.
