Hal, after all of the severe storms that we had in the DC area over this past summer, the outpouring of authority from locals would make your head spin. You see, most of the severe power outages have been in the older areas of the DC metropolitan area, most of them being in Maryland. These areas utilize nearly 100% aerial distribution of utilities that are inter-twined with century-old trees. When the storms come, the trees fall and they take out the utilities with them. The power company (primarily PEPCO) got their asses handed to them a few years ago because of the severity and length of the outages. Their solution was to start a heavy-handed approach to trimming trees in the vicinities of utility easements. Then the tree huggers and property owners started complaining that they didn't want their trees touched, vehicles on their property, views altered, etc. Next came the demand that PEPCO place power lines underground. Hal, you and I both know that putting 19.9KV+ transmission underground isn't going to happen. While it technically can be done, the cost would be astronomical. Forget about the simple cost of trenching, easements, existing utilities, SUBWAY lines and such, they would also have to deal with the NIMBY people who would protest to block such construction on their property. What these fools don't understand is that utility distribution takes a lot more than that simple drop from the pole to their house. They seem to think that the utilities just come up out of the ground at that pole! If the drop is buried, they won't have any more storm-related outages. They never seem to have any interest in discussing exactly who will pay for these costs. These people consider the local utility to be a government entity, when that is not the case at all. They are usually private corporations and any adverse expenses will simply be passed on to the customers. People need to stop boo-hooing when they lose their utilities and choose their poison: Experience occasional outages or pay for what MIGHT be a solution to avoid them. What is most concerning is that the local and mindless politicians follow this same mindset. They seem to think that by forcing PEPCO to put not just local distribution, but also transmission facilities underground, that storms will never affect power distribution again. Fools.............

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX