All the new subdivisions being built in my part of the world in British Columbia have no telephone poles. There are even some sections of my town that are getting ripped up to retrofit underground wiring.
So why don’t the hurricane prone states convert to underground wiring. It seems the biggest problem in recovering from a hurricane is dealing with the lack of power due to downed lines. Seems like a no brainer to me.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051017/NEWS01/510170336/1006
It’s expensive to install, and can be even more expensive to maintain (i.e., detecting and digging up buried lines). Pros and cons, and communities are deciding whether cost or reliability after storms is more important.
As noted, it’s expensive. Burying utilities which could be otherwise hung on poles can cost as much as 10 times more per foot. In addition, burying utililites in a public right of way always requires permission of a local government authority; getting those can be extremely time-consuming and costly. (I’ve obtained thousands of these permissions for various telecom and cable companies in the past half-dozen years; permitting is one of the mainstays of my business.) Hanging conductors on an existing pole line (except when crossing a public right of way which still requires government permission, but ain’t nearly as costly as an underground crossing) is relatively simple since you only have to apply to the pole owner(s). And pole owners are required by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to provide space on their poles to all applicants, where feasible, at a relatively low cost.
Also, in many densely populated urban environments, there just isn’t a whole lotta room available for new installations.
And finally, even tho’ you’ve buried all facilities which can be buried, you’ll still have a lot of equipment (most of the most expesive stuff) above ground and vulnerable to storm damage. For this reason, underground installations are no guarantee of continued service in the wake of a storm.
True 'nuf, dat. And the quantity of cable out there is staggering. Did some work for a cable TV provider in a large Michigan city last year; they’ve got over 2000 miles of plant inside the city limits. And that doesn’t count all the 'burbs around they city they also service.
I would even question the comment that overhead wires are slightly more susceptible to lightning. All lightning that strikes will hit the earth. A ground strike will take out every conductive wire that’s nearby: power, phone, cable. A pole strike will travel to the closest ground. I’ve seen a lot more damage with ground strikes but my experience is certainly anecdotal.
There was an article about this last week in the local paper here in Sacramento:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/energy/story/13727968p-14570848c.html
The local municipally-owned utility, SMUD, is planning to move lines underground not just in the name of storm protection, but rather to remove the blighted appearance they give to older commercial and retail areas. They quote a price of 1 million to 1.5 million $ per mile, part of which will be paid by the utility and part by the city and/or county. The goal is to help attract and retain businesses to these areas. The likelyhood this will be done anytime soon in residential area seems remote.
Are there no poles at all? If not what are the street lights attached to?
Lord Kelvin agrees with you.
Telephone cables got buried in New York 120 years ago due to a storm. Source Look a bit down the page.
I also live in BC, Nanaimo to be precise. In the new subdivisions there are light posts but they’re metal and there’s nothing else on them but the light. I’m glad they’re burying the wires; telephone poles are ugly as sin if you ask me. They’re crooked, unsightly and they have dangerous wires hanging off of them. The poles crush things when they fall or get knocked over. The wires electrocute people when they come down. If I were in charge of the government I’d get rid of every single one of the damned things.
Even if it costs your constituents hundreds of millions of dollars? 'Cuz the money - a shitpot full of it - to do that sure has to come from somewhere.
And the wires don’t generally come down unless there’s been some kind of major storm. It ain’t like the things are dropping off the poles at every intersection.
What’s more, burying electrical conductors isn’t gonna stop people from getting electrocuted. In fact, it might cause more. Lots of folks digging holes in areas with buried power lines are electrocuted every year. Power lines that have fallen to the ground after a storm are easy to see - and avoid. Underground lines, not so much.
And finally, there’s a lot of low-power stuff on those poles, too (CATV and POTS), including fiber optic conductors that don’t carry any electricity at all. If it can be proved that burying power conductors would indeed provide for greater public safety than stringing them on poles, you’re still gonna have to pay to bury all those low-power conductors which don’t present a threat at all.
One more thing. When guys bury those conductors, there are more than a few explosions and deaths caused by the contractors striking gas lines. Either because they’re located improperly, or due caution hasn’t been exercised.
I think this mostly happens in new subdivisions. In Calgary, from what I’ve seen, all new subdivisions have the lines buried.
I’ve not heard of many people getting killed doing this. It is a free service to have someone come out and map out the lines before you dig. If you don’t do this you end up paying the cost of any repairs (and maybe a fine, although I’m not sure of this). Otherwise, you are in the clear.
You may not have heard of many, but a T&D manager at work assures me that there is an alarmingly large number of people who die each year digging into an underground line, even people who will break through an armoured housing, thinking that it must be something they can just dig up and get rid of. I don’t know if he has any stats, if he does I’ll post them.
Most of my Florida clients blame flooding and water table on the reason more cables aren’t buried in Florida.
Think of it as a thinning of the herd. 
Don’t a large number of people fry themselves on overhead cables, too? Although, I’d agree that having something visible is easier to avoid than something buried.
And could this partly be because it isn’t as common to have buried cables in these areas so people aren’t as used to encountering them when they dig?
I think you’re probably correct on all three points.
Right. But the guy I was responding to wanted the gov’t mandate moving all existing aerial conductors underground. That’s the danger and expense I wanted him to justify.
Not entirely. The folks who come out to mark the buried facilities will only mark those belonging to the institutions who have a paid membership. If gas company XYZ does not belong to, say, MissDig in Michigan, when MissDig is requested to come out a do a locate, the field guy doesn’t generally mark the locations of XYZ’s pipes. And even if MissDig locates everything accurately (which doesn’t always happen), the contractor’s capable of making grievous mistakes, too.
It happens rather often. So often, in fact, that I have a client who buries their really critical fiber duct banks in poured and re-barred concrete encasements. This is the type of installation which costs upwards of a million bucks a mile.
Also in some very congested areas, our construction prints specify certain points where the contractor is required to hand dig. Use of excavation machinery is prohibited.
Again, in Calgary, the guy you call marks everything. If you dig after that and hit something you aren’t responsible for the repairs (I assume if you were doing something stupid you might be, but otherwise not).
I’d think you’d still want to be careful when you dig. The risk vs. the reward of having a neighbourhood without ugly power lines is worth it, I think.