Tens of thousands residents of Oklahoma & Missouri remain without power after last weekend's ice storm.Another storm threatens these same areas this weekend (the Kansas City Metro should see 3-4 inches of snow).
Untold millions of dollars have been lost by the stricken utility customers. The utilities themselves will bear a huge cost to restore services.
Overhead utility lines are succeptable to many kinds of severe weather and accidents. Trees along powerline routes have to be trimmed or removed. Not to mention a spaghetti of utility wires are simply unsightly.
Ask St. Louis metro utilities how much three severe storms since last summer have cost them. My bet is that those utilities could have buried hundreds of miles of lines for what they have spent to restore the downed ones.
With buried lines, weather-related problems and their accompanying disruptions are virtually eliminated. The public then needs not be concerned with downed lines as the lines are already down - underground.
The cost of the initial burial of the lines could virtually be recouped after a few severe storms move through a utility's service area.
Granted, the cost of burying utility lines would be prohibitive in lesser-populated and rural areas.
However there is no excuse for utilities serving large cities to not strongly consider and/or implement a program of burying their service lines.
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