North American Network Operators Group

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Re: BOOM! there goes WorldCom

  • From: Eric Wieling
  • Date: Thu Jul 17 19:11:43 1997

Some time ago Scott Yoneyama said:
>   You're right.  I forgot about the decomissioned pipelines.  Although,
> you'd be surprised how stupid some of these morons with backhoes are!  I
> remember a major MCI cut along their west coast route a few years ago
> that took out the entire northwest for 8 hours.  The guy was 600 yards
> away from where his permit allowed him to dig.  He stopped when he cut
> the fiber and shut his hoe down.  When they got out there, they found
> that he was digging right next to train tracks, was inches from cutting
> a high voltage power line that surely would have killed him, and was
> also fairly close to a gas line.

Is there any compensation to MCI in a situation like this?  I would
think that multi million dollar fines would make people think a little
before they start digging.

--Eric