Post here if buried power lines would have prevented a power outage for you sometime in the last 10

[Igel]

45. Hard to say.

Ice storm in Rochester had a power outage. Buried lines might have helped there. Might not have: They'd have to have been buried everywhere between us and the interdistrict transmission line.

Very expensive to bury the line, very expensive to maintain it. And that's given the sanity that is Rochester's hydrology and geology.

Live in Houston, TX, now. Water table much of the year is determined by how deep the St. Augustine roots go--a couple of inches. The soil's vertisol.

The first means that the buried power lines would just be under water much of the year.

The second means that when the ground does dry up, it contracts and forms cracks a couple of feet deep. This is good for cracking concrete slab foundations.

We don't do basements, thank you, for the same reasons. The clay'll crack the foundation, and a couple of months later the water table'll rise to nearly ground level.