Media Contact
Wendy Schaefer
(386) 575-2050
For Immediate Release
SUNLITE DAMAGE REPORT GIVES CONTRACTORS CHANCE TO CHANGE HEADLINE
DeBary, FL – You’ve probably heard “damage prevention is a shared responsibility.” But did you know that reporting damages to underground facilities is too?
Since 2003, the Common Ground Alliance (CGA) has been collecting and analyzing national data in the Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT). Sunshine 811 promotes its Virtual DIRT program, but it has been slow to catch on in Florida – especially with contractors. But contractors have a lot to gain from accurate reporting.
George Kennedy, NUCA Vice President of Safety, writes, “When the CGA creates its annual report, professional contractor data is combined with all other parties that fit within the definition of excavators (utility construction crews, municipality crews, farmers, home owners, railroad crews and others). NUCA representatives believe this leads to contractors being singled out as culpable when it comes to damage events because the data shows that excavators, per the CGA definition, are the leading cause of utility damages.”
Take a look at these statistics:
• In Florida, electric, gas and telecom are the reporting stakeholder groups for 100% of events submitted during 2013.
• Of those events, 77 percent place responsibility on the contractor.
According to Kennedy, contractors (throughout Florida) can tell stories of how they struck an improperly or inadequately marked utility.
We’re just asking you to share that story with us in Sunshine 811’s SUNLITE Damage Report available online at http://sunshine811.com/damagereport. It’s a simplified version of the national DIRT and questions mirror those DIRT.
With the SUNLITE Report, you have the choice of entering damages individually or providing them in a spreadsheet. If you’re already reporting to NUCA or Florida Virtual DIRT, please continue to do so. We’ll work to incorporate your data submitted nationally into the streamlined data collected for Florida.
To ease any concern you may have, data submitted in Florida and nationally is not used for enforcement purposes or in determining liability. And all identities of individuals and companies submitted are confidential.
Why is reporting damage so important?
Zero damages means safer working conditions and less dollars spent on downtime and high repair costs.
“By analyzing data and comparing damage trends year to year,” Sunshine 811 Executive Director Mark Sweet says, “we will be able to see a more accurate representation of the where, how and why underground utility damage is occurring and identify areas where more education is needed.”
Contractor damage data is vital to accurate underground utility damage information. Please start reporting today.