Sandy’s Blackouts Pressure Utilities to Bury Power Lines

[phantom power]

Imagine, the invisible hand doesn't always yield the optimal outcome

Super storm Sandy’s record blackouts and prolonged recovery laid bare the U.S. electrical grid’s vulnerability to wind and flood, renewing calls for utilities to invest billions to toughen their defenses against extreme weather that may become more common.

European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. routinely bury cables that connect homes to power networks, protecting them from wind and ice. U.S. utilities have balked at moving more infrastructure below ground, saying consumers would object to spending as much as $2.1 million a mile, according to one industry estimate, to bury wires for a system that’s not fail-safe.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-06/sandy-s-blackouts-pressure-utilities-to-bury-power-lines.html

[MADem]

1. If not done properly, that burying thing has its own issues.

You're walking down the sidewalk, all of a sudden your dog on the leash takes a huge electrocution hit.

It's happened.

Also, you can see failures happen if you're burying wires (phone/cable/electrical) in a place where there's lotsa flooding. They need to come up with a system that secures the wires from groundwater/flooding encroachment.

[PoliticAverse]

2. NYC had buried power lines in Manhattan and ended up having power being cut off in some areas

preemptively even due to flooding fears. It's a topic that comes up often on DU and it's not a panacea.

Would I be willing to pay the extra cost to have lines to me be buried to avoid power outages due to storms ?

No, I'd buy a generator or solar/battery backup system first.