Covid-19 Quarantine for Surveyors?

Bruce Dawson

Active Member
So right now up here in Washington State, there is a "Stay Home Stay Healthy" order from the governor that prohibits many professions from working. Only those involved in essential jobs are suppose to work. Land Surveying is not one of them. Most of my work is by myself, in areas that have little or no people. Still, I am staying home, and will probably continue until the order is lifted.

Just wondering if any other surveyors are facing a similar situation...
 

Jim Frame

Well-Known Member
I'm working solo on a groundwater sustainability plan for the basins in my county, establishing elevations at a couple hundred monitoring wells. Almost all the wells are in ag lands, and ag is one of the exceptions to the state health order, so I'm still at it. Yesterday was typical, I didn't get closer than10 feet of anyone, and only got within 50 feet of 3 people all day.
 

Joe Paulin

Well-Known Member
Here in Ohio the order exempts construction, critical trades, real estate services & professional services, so our surveying services fall under multiple exemptions - we are still working under heavily modified work protocol to limit our human interaction even more so compared to normal. As stated above, we (Surveyors) are not the type of folks that are the problem in this case. Bruce if you haven't already done so, I would urge you to read your state's order in detail to see if you are indeed exempt and can still keep working.
 

Bruce Dawson

Active Member
Interesting that others continue to work. I did indeed look at the details of the order, and real estate is not in there. Our state LS association confirms that we are not included, and an informal poll of local surveying/engineering firms finds them closed. I suspect some surveyors continue to work, especially small operations like mine with no employees and no brick and mortar office. I am considering just doing those jobs that are away from towns, but there is also the concern that I might still get fined. I have heard that our Labor and Industries inspectors are doing that for non-essential work sites, mainly residential home construction related. Still, a conversation with a State Patrol officer showed that they have received no orders to do that.
 

James Suttles

Active Member
Interesting that others continue to work. I did indeed look at the details of the order, and real estate is not in there. Our state LS association confirms that we are not included, and an informal poll of local surveying/engineering firms finds them closed. I suspect some surveyors continue to work, especially small operations like mine with no employees and no brick and mortar office. I am considering just doing those jobs that are away from towns, but there is also the concern that I might still get fined. I have heard that our Labor and Industries inspectors are doing that for non-essential work sites, mainly residential home construction related. Still, a conversation with a State Patrol officer showed that they have received no orders to do that.

What state is this?
 
As a 3 man shop, I have left it up to my 2 guys how the felt about the situation, so far we are still working, but I fear that any job we have on the books right now, might cancel at anytime and any jobs we have turned in, payment might be delayed. Stay safe!
 

Bill Eggers

Active Member
Here in New York, the restrictions originally allowed construction as essential service. We felt that we would fall within that designation.
Since then, this has been further limited to allowing construction of only essential infrastructure including bridges, hospitals, shelters.
We are not doing any work of that type, however we do have several boundary surveys of about 100 acres, with little to no contact with any people.

Our state surveyors society did submit a request to have land surveying recognized as an essential service but have had no response from the state.
Today we received an advisory from our society with suggested guidelines for field work including driving in separate vehicles, maintaining distance between crew members, not handling equipment by multiple people.
 

Duane Frymire

Active Member
If business is being adversely affected you might want to check out sba options.
 

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