Bury the FPL Lines! - Summer 2018

I have to admit that I was initially heartened to read a newspaper article on June 1 that outlined a Florida Power & Light plan to make power-line adjustments as a response to the significant loss of power during Hurricane Irma. However, the FPL response seems primarily to be one that calls for installing stronger power poles, upgrade lines and remove trees that might fall during storms and cause annoying and costly power outages. FPL only gave lip service to burying power lines – a topic Harshman & Co. has passionately endorsed. Unfortunately, upon further investigation, it appears that FPL more likely is rationalizing why they will not initiate a long-term effort to bury almost all of its power lines. Curiously, FPL seems to advocate burying power lines tied to new developments including new single-family homes but doesn’t at the same time endorse retrofitting established neighborhoods – seemingly not good policy. Like many issues I suspect this boils down to money. Yes, burying existing overhead power lines would cost mega dollars but the benefit of surviving storms without downed power lines would be tremendous and, in my opinion, well worth the investment. Long term, it would seem that such a practice would generate savings for FPL and consumers while helping to alleviate one major annoyance caused by storms. The City of Sarasota seems to be trying to do their part as they are burying lines in conjunction with the construction of the St. Armand’s Parking Garage and at no cost to the beneficiaries. So the question remains: If the City is burying their lines on City property and burying lines is required for most new development, why won’t FPL and the City establish a long-term plan to bury the lines along our road ways and retrofit existing neighborhoods with buried lines?