14 Mar Bringing Light Back to Smallwood Shopping Center
On Thursday March 7th 2019 around 5pm in Waldorf Maryland a subcontractor using a Horizontal Directional Drill (HDD) to install conduit for Comcast, was about to have a bad day. The contractor failed to get “private” utilities marked before drilling so they were unaware 10 feeders supplying power for 50% of the stores in Smallwood Shopping Center ran across their path. According to Murphy ’s Law (What can go wrong, will go wrong!) the contractor drilled through (10) 3 inch conduits darkening ½ the Shopping Center.
The property management company Saul Centers contacted LMI shortly after the incident. Friday morning LMI sent two (2) crews to the scene (Greg Bateman, Stan Syczurowski, Derick Lewis and Corey Chamblee) we met with the subcontractor on site and using our cable locator, located the damaged feeders. Once located the subcontractor excavated the area and exposed the damaged conduits.
Once exposed, LMI Electricians assessed the damage and realized they’d need more help to get the damage repaired. Greg put out a call to our Maryland State Highway manager and Maryland Service personnel to recruit help for what was sure to be a multi-day project. Neal Thompson and Shawn Naylor from Maryland State Highway; Derrick Lewis, Stan Syczurowski, Boris Gonzalez, Brad Anuszewski and Corey Chamblee from Maryland Service all came out to help.
Throughout the weekend we repaired conduits, pulled in thousands of feet of new wire, made up connections and one by one reenergized the stores.
Our longtime partner Dominion Electric Supply responded to our call for assistance and opened a location after hours Saturday and then again early Sunday morning to supply us with wire, conduit and connectors. We would not have been able to make this happen so quickly had it not been for Dominion Electric Supply being willing to open after hours to accommodate us.
This was a monumental job to complete in three days. Without the help of everyone involved we would not have been successful. Thank you to everyone for going above and beyond to satisfy our customer.
