ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – South County residents say a gas line was hit by workers in their neighborhood, but they don’t even know who’s doing the work.
It’s a common concern as increased broadband digging has led to more accidents. So, FOX 2 has found a simple way for you to get answers when it happens on your street.
A special One Call website allows you to search by address to get answers about what’s going on in your neighborhood. We found it after talking to many people concerned about the safety of work in their area.
Leon Knoernschild got a scare recently when a fiber crew hit a gas line in his neighbor’s driveway.
“I had no idea what was going on. I heard from people in the area there was a gas leak,” he said.
Knoernschild said he only heard about it from neighbors and that crews said nothing as they worked frantically out front.
“What’s going on here? I mean I can understand working out there during the day but late at night?” Knoernschild said.
Workers have now moved over a few streets.
“We really are in the dark about this,” said Matthew King.
King is concerned about a line he put in his yard for an automatic lawn mower.
“If it gets broken, it will no longer work, and it’s costly to get put back in,” he said.
Several residents say they often see trucks with no markings, out-of-state plates, and workers who won’t talk to them.
“We really don’t know who’s responsible here,” King said.
There’s a simple way to find who’s digging in your neighborhood through a search engine by “One Call Concepts.”
You’ll find a lot of information that may seem overwhelming. The quickest and easiest way to get your answer is to put your street name in the entry near the bottom right, about three lines above the map at the bottom of the page. Once you put in your street, you should see the most current jobs at the top. Click on the job, and you’ll find names of businesses along with phone numbers and contact emails.
In the south county case, it shows Massada Utility Contractors out of Springfield, Missouri doing work for I-3 Fiber. You will also find contact phone numbers and emails.
Though neither contractor responded to FOX 2 requests for comment, another resident said they were able to communicate with crews about their dogs’ electric fence as well as get answers about the recent gas line break, that’s now fixed.
FOX 2 also learned from Spire, who has now repaired the gas line hit by excavators, that the cause of the strike was a mismarked line by the locator company.