Think the power lines get buried now?

[Anonymous]

I am surprised at the number of people defending the above-ground power lines.

For me, it's not about losing power. It's about how ugly it is to have above-ground power lines.

Can the power companies not just finance this over the years? In 50 years, are we really still going to have above-ground power lines.

In the US, in the newer areas, it is standard. But in the older neighborhoods (even super nice ones), people still accept it as normal.

[Anonymous]

Correct me but I thought buried power lines meant that when there are issues they have to dig and that means longer outages, more costly and so on. Is that not right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buried lines don’t necessarily matter in a storm like yesterday and like the derecho. We have buried power lines, but when the transformer goes BOOM, our power goes out anyway.

Ours went out too on Friday, and our entire neighborhood's lines are underground. It was restored within 6 hours of me reporting the outage to Pepco. What's odd is that the other side of our street never lost power, but ours did, as did several adjacent streets.

I think generally we experience fewer power outages than when I lived in an older neighborhood in Bethesda with above-ground lines, but we do get short outages from time to time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correct me but I thought buried power lines meant that when there are issues they have to dig and that means longer outages, more costly and so on. Is that not right?

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) for underground utilities in nearly all places are 8 years or longer, versus several months for above ground utilities on poles.

Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) varies with the root cause of the fault. For underground power, the fault -nearly always- is substation damage (e.g., blown circuit breaker), which is repaired as a very high priority (and also usually is repaired very quickly). For above ground, many many faults are tree damage in the last mile, which is lower priority and usually longer outage before repair is complete, but they also suffer from substation damage of course.

Generally, actions which restore more customers faster are the higher priority tasks for the limited set of utility crews.

So, the quoted text about longer outages is not really right.

[Anonymous]

If they didn't bury power lines after the derecho, the little storm we had the other night is not going to make a difference.

[Anonymous]

The cost to retroactively bury is prohibitive, something like a million or two dollars a mile.

Don't hold your breath.

[Anonymous]

The tree canopy rules and the costs to prune trees is a big factor here. Huge trees do not belong along roads and power lines. The reality is they have probably been there for a long time and the city's rules probably prevent them from being removed. Pepco butchered a ton of trees after the Derecho but they probably should have just removed them. Large old trees need maintenance. A lot of the downed branches should have already been removed. But that costs a lot of money and most homeowners aren't will to spend. The city now will only plant certain varieties of trees along sidewalks/roads so they do not grow to large and the roots do not crack the sidewalks and roads. But that doesn't help the existing trees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The tree canopy rules and the costs to prune trees is a big factor here. Huge trees do not belong along roads and power lines. The reality is they have probably been there for a long time and the city's rules probably prevent them from being removed. Pepco butchered a ton of trees after the Derecho but they probably should have just removed them. Large old trees need maintenance. A lot of the downed branches should have already been removed. But that costs a lot of money and most homeowners aren't will to spend. The city now will only plant certain varieties of trees along sidewalks/roads so they do not grow to large and the roots do not crack the sidewalks and roads. But that doesn't help the existing trees.

In our neighborhood the county owns the trees under the power lines. We can only prune branches that come over our property. Luckily a couple of big ones fell in the storm (and did not damage property or pull down the power lines). I have put in request after request for the county to prune these trees. Nothing.

[Anonymous]

Boomers won't pay, they should foot the entire bill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been chatter and workers “studying” this issue for a few years now but am hoping this finally gets the job done. I know some areas are already in ground but it would be great if this finally moves this forward for a wide swath of residences.

The cost to do this would be astronomical, with all of that cost being passed on to the local taxpayers. I know a lot of people on this board say they don't mind paying extra taxes if it means better schools, better infrastructure, better whatever - but when it actually happens they're all up in arms. Just look at how many people are complaining about their exploding property taxes now! Just wait.

the problem is most of my property taxes are getting wasted via MCPS.

So, yes, I have issues with that. If my increase in property taxes was to bury my power lines, enhance roads, then sure, I would be OK with the increases. At least I get some benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The tree canopy rules and the costs to prune trees is a big factor here. Huge trees do not belong along roads and power lines. The reality is they have probably been there for a long time and the city's rules probably prevent them from being removed. Pepco butchered a ton of trees after the Derecho but they probably should have just removed them. Large old trees need maintenance. A lot of the downed branches should have already been removed. But that costs a lot of money and most homeowners aren't will to spend. The city now will only plant certain varieties of trees along sidewalks/roads so they do not grow to large and the roots do not crack the sidewalks and roads. But that doesn't help the existing trees.

I would rather lose power once every year or so, then lose our beautiful trees. One of the major benefits to our neighborhood is the leafy environment. If i lose power for a few hours, who cares.

Why cut down good looking trees that make the neighborhood beautiful?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's vine infestation to blame. Storm itself was rather short, over in 1 hr, with some gusts of wind. A lot of mature trees were fine, we noticed younger trees and branches were more vulnerable from our driving around last night. GW pkwy was closed, likely due to falling trees. Every time I drive on DC metro highways I see trees inundated by vines, literally choked. These trees do not survive storms, they are leaning already, and I am not surprised at all they fall into the roads. There is zero effort to remove or control the vines, it's only going to get worse. Even if all power lines were buried, trees will continue to fall into the roads blocking traffic/injuring ppl, not to mention people's homes and cars. There are volunteer groups that come to cut the vines at the root every year in late winter/early spring before leaves come in in some parks.. Not enough, can't depend on a handful of volunteers.

Um, no. Have you driven through Wesley Heights, Kent or Foxhall? Vines have nothing to do with the destruction.

In this specific case, this was a storm with down gusts (sort of like milder version of tornado). Vines or no vines if wind is that strong and blowing in one direction even healthy trees may fall down. It's why damage seems to be localized, like 1 block would get lots of down branches and trees, while 3 blocks over it's totally fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never gonna happen.

I leave in upper NW and last spring we had workers takes misures all over the area. I chatted with one who told me that he was working to prepare for the lines to be put underground in our neighborhood and that the work was already scheduled for around spring 2024 if I remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's vine infestation to blame. Storm itself was rather short, over in 1 hr, with some gusts of wind. A lot of mature trees were fine, we noticed younger trees and branches were more vulnerable from our driving around last night. GW pkwy was closed, likely due to falling trees. Every time I drive on DC metro highways I see trees inundated by vines, literally choked. These trees do not survive storms, they are leaning already, and I am not surprised at all they fall into the roads. There is zero effort to remove or control the vines, it's only going to get worse. Even if all power lines were buried, trees will continue to fall into the roads blocking traffic/injuring ppl, not to mention people's homes and cars. There are volunteer groups that come to cut the vines at the root every year in late winter/early spring before leaves come in in some parks.. Not enough, can't depend on a handful of volunteers.

Um, no. Have you driven through Wesley Heights, Kent or Foxhall? Vines have nothing to do with the destruction.

In this specific case, this was a storm with down gusts (sort of like milder version of tornado). Vines or no vines if wind is that strong and blowing in one direction even healthy trees may fall down. It's why damage seems to be localized, like 1 block would get lots of down branches and trees, while 3 blocks over it's totally fine.

Still, vulnerable trees (inundated by vines) have higher propensity to fall down without a need for a supercell storm of some sort. Regular high winds (small craft) or lots of rain can take them down, vs. healthy trees. And because a lot of unkempt vine inundated tree zones are along the highways and roads, they will inevitably fall into the roads, it's logical. People who live near trees usually take care of those that may fall onto their homes, but public land trees do not get taken care of at all. Even if this doesn't lead to power outages with time there will be more and more disruptive temporary road closures, accidents related to falling trees, injuries, etc. I believe in the South along 95 they control this from driving down there.

[Anonymous]

Chuckling from the cheap seats. Our power lines in NE are buried. Never lost power in 19 years.