Photo: Mehgan McCarthy, pbdailynews.com
“The 2020 hurricane season is cranking into high gear, and with it comes the dread of storm surges, wind damage and power outages.
This is the first hurricane season in recorded history to bring nine tropical storms before Aug. 1…
Nowhere is the threat more real than on a barrier island such as Palm Beach, where construction began three years ago on town-wide conversion to buried power, phone and cable television lines.
Town officials say an underground system will be more resistant to damage from high winds, which can wreak havoc on overhead utility poles and wires and, of course, force people to endure days or even weeks without power.
‘We can’t definitively say they will never be without power,’ said Steve Stern, manager of Palm Beach’s underground utilities program. ‘But the fact is there are no overhead wires or poles or aerial transformers to break in a future windstorm. If they do lose power, these areas can be repaired much quicker than those that still rely solely on overhead utilities.’
The project is being done in phases and completion expected as early as 2026. The construction cost is expected to be around $121 million, Stern said.
Thus far, three neighborhoods have been converted to the new underground system…
The three areas that have been converted to underground power represent only a fraction of the total 2,997 parcels in town. But a few streets and neighborhoods, such as Nightingale Trail and La Puerta Way, and Everglades Island, already have buried their utilities on their own.
Over the years, a significant portion of properties throughout town have buried utility lines up to the property line but still receive power from overhead lines, town officials have said.
It also is important to note that all electrical power reaches the island via main transmission lines that may be storm-hardened but are still overhead, Stern said…
In May 2018 Florida Power and Light Co. told state regulators that underground utilities performed so well during Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016 that the utility’s goal is to have its entire distribution system ‘hardened or placed underground by 2024.’
FPL took 10 days to restore power in the state after Irma, which made landfall in the Florida Keys, then swept through the state, knocking out power to 90 percent of the utility’s customers.
FPL said 82 percent of non-hardened main overhead power lines lost power, compared to 69 percent of hardened overhead main power lines and 18 percent of underground power lines.”
— William Kelly, pbdailynews.com