There are emergency locate requests that can be made. Depending on the situation (and the state), the gas company may indeed wait until they hear from AT&T. In an emergency they may go ahead and dig, but if they damage a fiber optic line they are responsible for repairs, which may be several thousand dollars.
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True. However, even a multi-thousand-dollar fiber repair is nothing compared to what happens if the gas explodes. Different situations call for different responses, and of course I’m in a place where all of the electric service is overhead anyway so hitting underground electric lines isn’t a major concern, but Gas Service employees in other areas do indeed have to think what else might be lurking below.
I don’t know if this extends to private residences, but in Milwaukee any graffiti on public property is generally painted over within 24 hours, specifically to avoid gang issues.
Check the call before you dig website for your area. In my area, after they mark an area, you (or whoever is digging) have 10 days to do start the work otherwise they have to have it remarked.
The pole at the nearest intersection, for example, is a busy one: tangent cross-arms carrying the neighborhood distribution circuits, a high-pressure-sodium street light and the street light circuit (fed from a pole-mounted transformer in the next block), plus telephone and cable. The pole closest to me, likewise, has a pole-mounted transformer and four service drops, plus telephone/cable (but no street light).
Cable is mixed, some strung on poles and some underground, while gas and water are underground. The discussion, however, was in the context of the gas company not waiting around for a locate if they had a gas leak underground. @gnarator asserted that digging for the gas line and hitting an underground electric line would make a bad situation worse. I replied that isn’t a concern in my immediate vicinity because we don’t have underground electric service. The gas company knows where their lines are, and if somebody loses telephone service because the gas company didn’t wait to hear back from AT&T before doing an emergency dig, that is still better than blowing up. (I have seen the results of a gas explosion. Gas Service doesn’t screw around when there is even a possibility. I once called the gas company because I smelled gas outside down the block. The guy gets out of his truck [this is 10 pm], walks maybe 15 feet, gets back in his truck, and has a backhoe there and a hole well underway by 10:30.)
In the realm of “things underground that can go wrong really quick,” gas is at the top of the list locally, followed by water. In an emergency, Gas Service usually digs first and doesn’t much care what they hit, the water dept respects gas but doesn’t worry overmuch about fiber, and AT&T/Cox are low man on the totem pole.