|
I understand both sides of the arguement (buried verses overhead) but really feel that some kind of effort should be made to gradually move the wires underground. When Frances approached there were widespread power outages on Thursday morning in the Palm Beach area as the initial bands moved ashore. All of these were trees across wires. We lost power Saturday night as the eyewall hit the coastline. Our power was restored for a few hours on Sunday morning and then continuously on Monday morning. We have buried utilities due to being in a new development.
Then when Jeanne approached, we again heard of power outages (not as many this time as the trees had been somewhat pruned by the first cat 2 storm) and again, we did not lose power until late Saturday night as the eyewall was just off the coast. Power came on again Sunday about 11am and stayed on. Both of these storms were direct hits on Palm City.
The sad part is I knew people here at work that had only gotten their power back for a couple of days from Frances before Jeanne knocked it out again and they are hearing it could be as late as October 12th. Unbelievable.
Currently it seems that the power lines only get buried in new communities and you almost never see them being put underground in older ones. There are areas here in Palm City where they are tearing the roads and driveways up putting in new sewer and water lines, talk about a good time to put wires underground as well, but are they doing that? No...not much planning on their part. I know there is additional cost to putting them underground, but as a current FL resident I would be willing to bet most of us down here would pay a little extra to do it right once and for all.
FD
|