In today's energy driven world this is unbelievable

Reading about the more than 4 million homes and businesses (or somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million people?) being left without power as a result of Hurricane Irene hitting the Mid Atlantic states and North East so far, I had strong flashbacks of the 6 weeks we were left without power after Category 5 Hurricane Hugo hit the Caribbean Island of St.Croix on September 17, 1989.
Six weeks, and yet we were located almost next door to WAPA, the Virgin Island’s power company. It took between 6 months and a year for the rest of the island to be hooked up again, even though crews and utility trucks came in from all over the world to help out.

Ever since moving to the US, now more than 30 years ago, I have wondered why power in this country is still distributed above ground (overhead) on powerlines stretching via ugly wooden poles, with exposed transformers that blow up on occasion. When this happens powers goes out and businesses shut down for the duration. When the shut down happens because of a hurricane impact, the economy of a neighborhood, town, city, state or in the case of Irene, the entire eastcoast, comes to a screeching halt.
Destruction and danger go hand in hand, when water, wind and electricity meet and businesses go bust and lives are lost.
When I went through another category 3 hurricane Luis on the island of St.Martin in 1995, it happened again. Power was out for months and the tourism economy of the island barely survived the blow. But there was one difference in the ensuing reconstruction of the island. Holland, which is the “rich” partner in the constellation of The Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba”, sent utility workers, equipment and supplies to put all powerlines underground. A major and no doubt costly effort (most of the island is rock and granite) that however paid off nicely over the years. Since 1995 the island has been hit by at least half a dozen strong hurricanes, of which Lenny in 1999 was a major one. During the storms, the power company still shuts off the power, but as soon as the storm has past, the juice is turned back on and live is back to “normal” within days with huge clean up advantages because there is power.

A Lesson for Puerto Rico

Irene, long before she decided to harass the US east coast as barely a category 1 storm, came through the Eastern Caribbean, including St.Martin and Puerto Rico (a hundred miles to the west of St.Martin). The result: St.Martin was back in business the same day, but eastern Puerto Rico, from the city of Fajardo on, was declared disaster area and power is still out for many customers and businesses.

So what is the reason for a technologically advanced country as the US, not to put power distribution under ground. Too expensive according to the Power Companies, who think in short term scenarios, which exclude natural disasters, because that is something for insurance companies to deal with.  Western Europe did it in the 50s and early 60s and while I lived there I cannot recall every having a power outage. My brothers who still live there, have never reported computers being fried by power surges, not even in the worst storms. It rains, in various measure, on 300 days out of the year in Holland, the reason why it’s always green, dairy and flowers are major products and every city street has at least one bar on every block. There is an abundance of water to deal with, which is why powerlines are triple insulated in pipes and concrete housing as it crisscrosses the country and cities. As I said before, Holland, Belgium and Germany experience major inclement weather with storms producing windspeeds in access of 100mph, but I never experienced a power outage.

With hurricane Irene long passed here in North Florida I look over Fletcher Dr. towards the Atlantic on this sunny Sunday morning and see ugly wooden utility poles, powerlines and transformers obscuring my view and I imagine the misery if Irene would have passed us a hundred miles closer than she did. We’d be without power, no way to post this observation, no coffee, dead cellphones, no TV to update ourselves on what Irene was doing to millions of other Americans, food going bad in refrigerators, no gas at the pump for our cars. Misery all around.

Try to figure this one out after a storm

Oh I’ve been down that road several times in my Caribbean years…especially when hooligans come out at night to steal or demand at gunpoint whatever little there is left from canned goods to gasoline in the tanks of destroyed cars. And you better give it to them if you’re not armed and ready, because without power, the night is pitch black and law enforcement is usually busy elsewhere.

So here is a “novel” thought. We have serious unemployment in this country; we have a government itching to print more money for another Quantitative Easing program; two of which so far have only benefitted financial institutions; we have a society and economy that entirely depends on stable energy; we are moving into a major economic shift from industrial to technological society; all needing reliable, uninterrupted power supply.

Let’s put America’s power underground, for once not bowing to the ignorant corporate short term thinking that I found on the Florida Power website . There are numerous examples around the world that prove what FPL claims as their justification for overhead service is wrong, archaic and irresponsibly outdated.
The opening statement reads: FPL and other utilities build to an overhead standard established in Florida by the Public Service Commission (PSC) as the most cost-effective type of construction. It smells a bit too much like forceful lobbying in my opinion.

America built its wealth on energy. Without power/electricity there is no economy, just ask the people in the 4 million homes and businesses who were just cut off by what in reality should be called a minimal force tropical storm. Imagine what a category 5 leaving us without power for a year will do to the economy and then develop the vision to look into the future. Our economic driving force needs to be much better protected than hanging from ugly wooden poles and exposed to the elements. That was okay up to 1950, but the world has changed enormously since then. Time we get with the program.