Why don’t we put power lines underground?
By Eleanor Cummins | Published Jun 07, 2018 1:15 AM
The first message transmitted through Samuel Morse’s newly-inaugurated telegraph line asked, “What hath God wrought?” Sent from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland through a system of wires suspended above homes and trees on wooden poles, the 1844 dispatch was oddly fitting. Suspended telegraph wires were soon supplanted by Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone wires and supplemented by electricity wires connecting citizens to the growing grid. But they were not a universally popular choice. At first, people complained utility poles, as they would come to be called, were unreasonably ugly. Today, people claim they’re unreasonably risky.
Each year, hurricanes, snowstorms, and an assortment of other weather events destroy above-ground utility poles. Heavy snow and ice can snap wires. More commonly, ferocious winds topple utility poles themselves, or uproot neighboring trees, which drag nearby wires down with them.
