Power Line Glitch in Frontyard

These mysterious white markings appeared in our front yard. No one knocked on the door, left a note, or called to explain.

Then the flags appeared. The call-before-you-dig people had marked the buried utility lines. Still no communication. Glen tried calling various entities, but no luck.

Finally, a friendly guy knocked on the door to tell us he planned to dig in our yard in a couple of days. Apparently the electric company had located a break in the line there and our power was being routed around from the other side of the street until they could patch it. Thank goodness for redundancy in the system.

The line was pretty deep, and they never got to the gas line, which was also supposed to be down there somewhere.

Eureka! they told us they were watching for a spot of mud -- that's the tell-tale clue. Very friendly people who didn't mind us gawking a bit, and learning something new.

That divet on the cable is the failure point. Now that they had it exposed, they covered the hole with boards, waited for the power company to repair it, and then came back to fill in the hole and reseed the area.