Why the power outages every time the East coast has a storm?

[RosieTR]

I am getting posts from friends on Facebook who live in the NE that they have/might lose power due to the big blizzard. And there was Sandy, and Irene, and several storms before that. I don't get why, in a place that has repeated blizzards and ice storms plus lots of trees, the power companies get away with just short-term fixes on the overhead power lines rather than burying them. I'm guessing it's due to some combo of lack of money, political gridlock, and maybe even "this is the way it's always been" type thinking? Those of you there, what do you think? We in the west sometimes get power outages from weather, but not more than a day or two. But I think our lines are buried. They were not always this way-I remember overhead lines as a kid, and my parents confirmed this. But at some point the power co buried them. Maybe b/c of the regular 80+ mph winds and, um, blizzards. I just can't fathom expecting many days and up to a couple weeks without power due to a snowstorm, in a place that regularly gets big snowstorms! If it snowed big in Houston or Phoenix and they had a lot of problems, that's understandable. But Boston? NYC? Really? That said, I do wish everyone is OK, just wowed by the fact this situation continues.

[Wildflower]

It's the same here in the Midwest. We do have buried lines where I live, but did without power for an entire week thanks to an ice storm a couple years ago. Power regularly goes out here due to high winds, tornados, severe thunderstorms, ice storms and blizzards, in spite of the lines being buried....

[CathyA]

I think the storms have just been worse lately.

[ApatheticNoMore]

The lines are NOT buried here, I always thought they were not buried in the U.S. period. Of course the only real risk is a windstorm, one knocked out my power a few years ago (but then no driving risk, no freezing risk etc.., at worst find somewhere else to say if you are too hot/cold, an earthquake might be interesting but I'm not sure buried lines would help).

[SteveinMN]

The lines here are buried in the outer suburbs, but not in the cities (well, except for the actual downtowns, which in many respects are newer than the outer limits of the cities and the first-ring suburbs). I'm sure burying them would help, but after seeing the effort (read: $$$) and time it took to get a light-rail system built, I'm thinking the acquisition of whatever right of way is necessary is a killer issue.

That said, the power around here is incredibly stable. There are light bulbs I'm using for short periods most days which have been here since I moved in almost 10 years ago. Remarkable.

[CathyA]

Even if certain lines are buried, the substations, etc., are not.......so they may be the culprits. Our lines are buried from the country road to our house (about 1/4 mile).......but that doesn't help us much, since all the rest of the lines all over the county are above ground.

[Miss Cellane]

Mostly, I think it is the cost. Here's a quote from this article: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/efficiency/should-the-northeast-bury-its-power-lines-to-prevent-outages-14295683

For example, in a new suburban neighborhood, installing ordinary overhead power lines costs about $194,000 per mile on average. Installing underground power lines would cost $571,000 per mile. And to retrofit an older suburban neighborhood with underground lines, the costs climb up to an average of $724,000 per mile.

A lot of the East Coast was built up a long time ago. Retrofitting buried power lines in Boston or NYC--I'm not even sure where they would go. There's also getting permission to do this--I remember it took years to get cable TV in Boston because of the fights and disputes and disagreements over where the cable lines would run. Surrounding rural areas had cable years before it was available in Boston because of the difficulties in getting all the required agencies to sign off on running cable lines. And those lines ended up sharing the telephone poles with phone and power lines. I can't imagine what would need to be done to dig up every street and every sidewalk in the city. And you'd be digging very close to 200-300 year old buildings in some places--preventing damage to the buildings would raise the cost significantly.

There are things that can be done to improve the existing overhead power lines. Years ago, I moved to rural Connecticut. The power went out briefly every other week or so. You'd come home and find all your electronics blinking at you, yet again. The reason, or so I was told, was that Connecticut had very old equipment--power lines and transformers and such--and all it would take was a strong breeze or a small tree branch to interrupt the power. After the mess of Hurricane Gloria, where some areas were without power for three or more weeks, they started to replace the older equipment/wires and slowly things started to improve over the next few decades. So just keeping the hardware up to date can help.

Then there are all the trees. The power companies want to cut branches that could fall on power lines. But there are people who disagree with that, or disagree on the number of branches that need to be cut or how much they should be cut. I've seen tree-trimming programs halted for over a year due to such disagreements and the lawsuits they can bring.

So I think most of us in the Northeast would love to have a power delivery system that didn't run the risk of shutting down every time there was a blizzard or hurricane. I think most people don't want to pay the price for it, however.

[Float On]

There is no way they could afford to bury the lines around here with the amount of rock they'd have to blast to do so. When we built our house we asked about it and even to bury it from the pole at the back of our property to the house was unthinkable. We've had very reliable service and our rural electric coop is alway quick with repairs. A couple weeks ago we lost power due to someone trying to steal copper - power back on in 3 hours. That bad ice storm several years ago where some were without for over three weeks ours barely blinked.

I sure don't blame the power companies along the east coast, thats the most dense population and the oldest construction in the country. Keeping up with repairs is tough. I'm sure we've got a team headed to the northeast now to help with repairs, just like we did after Sandy and just like NJ electric sent teams to help Joplin tornado a few years ago and the big ice storm in the Springfield area a few years before that.

One thing is for sure when the power is out we all appreciate it that much more.

[happystuff]

My lines are not buried while the surrounding newer developments have buried lines. They regularly lose power while we rarely lose power (4 times in the last 22 years with the longest outage lasting about 6 hours). As someone else stated, I'm not sure that burying or not burying lines is the actual issue.

[creaker]

My lines are not buried while the surrounding newer developments have buried lines. They regularly lose power while we rarely lose power (4 times in the last 22 years with the longest outage lasting about 6 hours). As someone else stated, I'm not sure that burying or not burying lines is the actual issue.

I'm in a neighborhood of Boston - between all the digging that goes on to maintain gas, water, sewer already, I don't know if having the lines buried would be better or worse.

[ToomuchStuff]

Late last century, we had a bad ice storm that knocked out power for a while. I and a few neighbors were without for two weeks. (had an elderly neighbor that had just been put on an oxygen machine) I went over, when her daughter got stuck and changed her tank once (large tanks were delivered, since no one knew how long it would take). Thankfully some people here, still had gravity or furnaces with thermocouples, instead of electronic ignition.
The city applied for and was given a grant (it was something like a two year process) and then they sent out notices to all, about burying power lines. Mine was not, as the location would require a neighbors 50 year old tree to come down, tearing out sections of a wall, two driveways, and some concrete steps (none of that was covered and getting the neighbor to agree could be tough).
Most of the area is buried, but there are some area's (like the rock in another post), where it wasn't cost feasible.

[pony mom]

I'm in a newer development and all of our lines are buried, but somewhere they connect to something above ground. During Sandy we lost power for 4 days.

Trees are a big part of the problem. There are lots of older trees here and a lot of big pine-type trees with shallow roots. When the ground is wet and it gets windy, these trees just get uprooted. You wouldn't belive how spread out these roots are! It's a bit rural out here too, and lots of trees are along the road on undeveloped land. Unless the town trims them, they break or come down as well.

Where it's hilly, there are rows and rows of dead trees just lying there; if they're not lying on wires, they will be left there to rot.

[RosieTR]

OK, interesting responses. Maybe I was mistaken about the whole issue of overhead lines vs old transformers and such. Also, I noticed that there are some overhead lines here, but all the nearby trees are trimmed away from them (sometimes in an interesting U shape!). Perhaps too, we get windstorms and blizzards but often the wind comes first, then snow or rain so it's not saturated ground. Or because droughts are even more frequent, the trees have much deeper roots? It's somewhat common to have branches fall in an early snowstorm or bad windstorm but not often the whole tree unless there's lightning or something. I guess I'm just surprised that there isn't a solution in a densely packed area with frequent bad weather. But then again, I guess each area is different with their problems. We might not lose power, but they regularly close the interstate and state highways due to wind and/or snow, to the point that there are permanent signs (particularly in WY) that blink if it's closed. People recently relocated here from other areas of the country have expressed incredulousness at the idea an interstate highway would be closed due to a windy day. They quickly understand the need though, when they see overturned semi trucks from said wind!