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Preparing for hurricane season
The
mission of Sunshine State One Call of Florida is to assist in the
prevention of damage to our members’ buried facilities. A hurricane that
threatens the State of Florida can impact our members and our call
center as well as the services that we are able to provide. This web
page is designed to familiarize both our members (those entities that
own or operate buried utilities/facilities) and excavators with our
hurricane readiness and response procedures.
Call
Center status updates provided to members, excavators
In the event that a hurricane threatens Volusia County in Central
Florida where our call center is located, our members and subscribers to
our email distribution list will receive periodic updates on the status
of our call center operations. Please click on this email address to
subscribe to these important messages:
ssocof@callsunshine.com.
Note: Those on this list also
receive updates on SSOCOF technical and procedural changes and
information on SSOCOF board and committee meetings.
SSOCOF procedures before, during
and after a hurricane
Hurricane watch issued for Volusia County
When a hurricane watch is issued for Volusia County, SSOCOF begins
preparations to close the call center. While these preparations are
being made, the call center remains open for normal business and
receives calls from members and excavators. ITE remains operational 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
Hurricane warning issued for Volusia
County
When a hurricane warning is issued for Volusia County, SSOCOF closes the
call center and no longer takes locate tickets over the phone. ITE
remains in operation (unless the system is damaged by the hurricane).
Call center re-opening
After the hurricane has passed and travel is safe, the call center will
re-open for business at the beginning of the next normal business day.
Business days are Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. unless the day
falls on a legal holiday.
Extended or weekend hours
Normal hours of operation may be extended to include additional hours,
before 7 a.m., after 5 p.m. or weekend hours, to assist our members with
restoration efforts in areas affected by a hurricane. Notification of
call center hours of operation will be posted online and distributed
through email. During extended hours of operation, the call center will
remain open to provide services to members only. These services include
processing extraordinary circumstance declarations, providing and
updating member contact information, taking and delivering locate
tickets, etc.
Service if the call center is damaged or
destroyed
SSOCOF has ITE and a managed disaster recovery solution with a live
backup server at a secure cyber center facility in Columbus, Ohio. In
the event of a catastrophic loss of our call center, operations will be
transferred to the Ohio-based disaster recovery system. (Some system
downtime will occur during this transition period). After the transition
is complete, members and excavators will again have 24/7 access to ITE.
Members
Pre-hurricane procedures
SSOCOF members need to prepare before a hurricane threatens to ensure
that contact with other members can be made during post-storm recovery
operations.
The easiest way to do this is to have a
paper copy of the emergency contact list on SSOCOF’s Irth website. All
members have access to this information by logging into the
Irth System
using their regular user name and password.
After logging in, click on “Reports” in the
menu bar across the top of the page and click on “Emergency Service Area
Contacts.” You will be able to search for contact information by county
and access the emergency and catastrophic emergency contacts.
-
Emergency contact – the
individual to contact during an emergency situation involving the
member’s buried facilities.
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Catastrophic emergency contact –
the individual responsible for communications after a catastrophic
event such as a hurricane. Note: Because this is a new contact and
information is still being gathered, catastrophic contact
information may not be available for all members.
Update your contact information
This is also a good time to update your emergency contact information to
ensure that other SSOCOF members can reach you following a hurricane.
Click here
to update your emergency contact information.
Additional contacts/resources
Declaring extraordinary circumstances
Members adversely affected by a hurricane may notify SSOCOF that
extraordinary circumstances exist, preventing them from complying with
the provisions of Chapter 556. The members are then relieved of the
responsibility for locating and marking their buried facilities in
response to locate tickets and SSOCOF makes that information available
to excavators that subsequently request a locate ticket. Members with
more than one member code may declare extraordinary circumstances for
specific codes or all of them. Members must notify SSOCOF again when the
extraordinary circumstances no longer exist. After a member declares
extraordinary circumstances, the SSOCOF positive response system
automatically replies to excavators with the 3T response (for those
member codes included in the member’s declaration of extraordinary
circumstances) stating that: "Extraordinary circumstances exist. Call
utility owner/operator provider for this location."
Note: During extraordinary circumstances,
locate tickets will be delivered to members as usual as long as their
receiving equipment is functioning. If the member’s receiving equipment
is not functioning, the tickets will remain in queue at the call center
for delivery as soon as the member’s receiving equipment is again
working properly.
Although members may have declared
extraordinary circumstances, they will still be listed on locate tickets
in order to inform excavators of their presence in the dig site area.
Those who call 811 are verbally informed which of those members have
declared extraordinary circumstances. ITE users and anyone else wishing
to view and print out a list of member codes for those members that have
declared extraordinary circumstances can click on this link
http://www.callsunshine.com/corp/new/extracir.html.
To declare or undeclare extraordinary
circumstances, members must email SSOCOF's
Member Services Department or fax
(800-651-8601) containing the member’s name, member code(s) and a
statement that extraordinary circumstances either exist or no longer
exist. You may also contact the department at (800) 651-6720.
Special Note: SSOCOF will not be able to
process extraordinary circumstance declarations when a hurricane warning
is issued for Volusia County as the call center will be closed for the
duration of the storm. Therefore, members are urged to submit their
extraordinary circumstance declarations to SSOCOF before a hurricane
warning for Volusia County is issued, if possible.
Excavators
How locate tickets are affected
Excavators may continue producing locate tickets by phone or Internet
Ticket Entry during hurricane watches issued for Volusia County. When a
hurricane warning is issued for Volusia County, the call center will
close; however, Internet Ticket Entry will remain available.
What to do when extraordinary
circumstances are declared
After a hurricane strikes the State of Florida, restoring service to
business and residential customers is our members’ top priority. During
this time, a member may declare extraordinary circumstances, which
relieves them from having to respond to excavators’ locate requests.
Locate tickets will continue to list all SSOCOF members with buried
utilities/facilities near the excavation site, even those members that
have declared extraordinary circumstances. Callers will be verbally
informed of which members have declared extraordinary circumstances. ITE
users can click
here for an extraordinary circumstances list.
If a member on a locate ticket has declared
extraordinary circumstances, the excavator should still wait the two
full business days as required by law for the excavation site to be
located and marked (unless the excavator is performing emergency repair
work as exempted under the statute). Members that declare extraordinary
circumstances may still be able to complete the work for your ticket. If
the two full business days passes, excavators may proceed with their
work as explained in s. 556.105(5)(a), “If a member operator has not
located and marked its underground facilities within the time allowed
for marking set forth in paragraphs (4)(b) and (c), the excavator may
proceed with the excavation, provided the excavator does so with
reasonable care, and provided, further, that detection equipment or
other acceptable means to locate underground facilities are used.
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