Planting some nice flowers for summer? Better call the State first.

Flickr User: woodleywonderworks
Tommy didn't now the rules and is now facing 10 years in prison and over 9000 fines, all because he wanted a garden in his back yard in South Carolina...

Safety first, so they say. There is a new South Carolina law that directly affects all who like to plant, dig, or mess around in their yard. 

In order to, "protect yourself and your community from costly fines, repairs, personal injury or inconvenient outages" you now need to call South Carolina 811 by dialing 811 on your phone prior to any digging.

via SC1pups.org

At least 3 full working day notice (not including the day of the call) prior to digging, call SC811 by dialing 811 or (888) 721-7877. A SC811 representative will record the location of the digging site and notify member companies of your intent to dig. Each member company will then send either one of their employees or a contract locator to your dig site to mark the location of their underground facility lines. 

Once the lines have been marked, you may begin carefully to dig, keeping in mind the 2 feet allowance on either side of the markings. Not all utilities are members with SC811. If a utility is not named, please contact them directly. 

So if you want to plant those flowers you just bought or set up that nice garden you've been talking about, it's going to take an additional 4 days to do so. 

WMBF News has a few more details and some quotes from Santee Cooper regarding this matter. 

This is all thanks to the now in effect "South Carolina Underground Facility Damage Prevention Act" which you can read below.

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