April is National Safe Digging Month, a perfect time to reflect on the serious consequences of utility strikes - and re-evaluate your plan to avoid them. These accidents, though often preventable, can have a far-reaching impact beyond the immediate damage.
Here are four major costs of utility strikes - and why they can be devastating to your company.
1. Project Delays & Lost Productivity Across Jobs
A single utility strike can set off a chain reaction that affects more than just one site. Work often grinds to a halt while inspectors, utility companies, and safety teams respond, leading to immediate delays. But the impact doesn’t stop there. Crews are left waiting, unsure of what comes next. Equipment scheduled for other jobs sits idle. Tasks that were supposed to follow get pushed back, affecting subcontractors, schedules, and productivity across the board.
Even small disruptions can snowball - throwing off carefully planned timelines, reducing the amount of work completed each day, and leaving other projects scrambling to stay on track. The longer the delay, the harder it becomes to recover, and the more your team falls behind. One strike can ripple through your entire operation, making everything more complicated and costly.
2. Reputational Damage That Follows You
Utility strikes can cause lasting damage to your reputation, which is critical in the construction industry. Clients, project owners, and partners expect projects to run smoothly, and delays caused by utility strikes make you look unprofessional, regardless of fault. When strikes become a pattern, clients may begin to question your ability to deliver on time and on budget, which can hurt your chances of landing future projects. In a competitive field where reputation is everything, a few strikes can tarnish the image you’ve worked hard to build, leading to a loss of trust and long-term business relationships.
3. Fines, Insurance Claims, and Legal Risk
Utility strikes often lead to financial repercussions far beyond the cost of the damage itself. Local governments may impose fines if safety regulations are violated, and utility companies can demand reimbursement for any damage caused. Additionally, insurance claims may rise, and your premiums could increase as a result. The financial toll doesn’t end there - legal action can be taken against you, increasing both the cost of the strike and the risk of prolonged litigation. These financial consequences directly impact your bottom line, leaving you with significant costs that weren't accounted for in your original project budget.
4. Safety Hazards That Threaten Your Crews
Utility strikes are some of the most dangerous incidents that can occur on a jobsite. Whether it’s a live wire, a gas line, or a pressurized pipe, the potential for catastrophic injury or death is high. Even a small mistake can cause explosions, fires, electrocution, or toxic leaks. These safety hazards pose immediate physical threats to the well-being of your crew, and the impact can be lifechanging. No matter how carefully the site is planned, a utility strike can present serious and unavoidable risks to everyone involved.
The Bottom Line – Prevent Strikes with Better 811 Ticket Management
Utility strikes are more than just an inconvenience; they can have severe consequences for your crew, your reputation, and your business. Understanding the hidden dangers and costs associated with these incidents is critical to minimizing the impact they have on your operations.
Prevention is the best defense when it comes to utility strikes. By proactively addressing potential risks, you can avoid costly delays, safety hazards, and the damage that comes with a strike. One key component of prevention is ensuring that your team has access to the most accurate and up-to-date utility locate information, especially in the field. Field employees need immediate access to this data to avoid accidental damage to utilities, and the best way to make this happen is by implementing an accessible, centralized system.
The right system will ensure that everyone on your team is working with the same up-to-date documentation - minimizing the risk of costly mistakes and improving overall productivity. Having utility locate details at your field employees' fingertips can make all the difference in preventing a strike before it happens.
Don’t gamble by heading into another season without a centralized system in place to manage utility locate information. How is your company managing 811 ticket information now?
