atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telecom Service & Providers Vandalism in Paradise

Ed, what I was commenting on was the assertion by LIPA that buried service wires get damaged just as often as overhead wires, so in the long run it's easier to get people back in service after a storm.

I have never seen a tree limb damage any underground wires.

Why don't they cut down the tree's and make the telephone poles look like pine tree's like they do with the cell tower's around here ???

I live in a small rural town of about 1500 folks in Kansas. We have lot's of wind storms and the occaisional ice storm. I'm 66 and lived here all my life. The soil is sandy here and digging is easy. For that reason the phone lines are 95% (a guess) UG or buried. Power is still mostly aerial, but it is beefed up and I only remember twice being without power for more than a day. Once when a 132 MPH microburst hit us 20 year ago and blacked us out for 7 days and once when there was an ice storm which put us out for about 24 hours. I'm sure it costs much more to put up lines here than in the East and I'm sure I wouldn't want to pay that if I lived there. Trees here are probably better able to handle the problems as well, because hey are pruned by high winds frequently. By the way that microburst put 29 miles of H-fixture power line flat on the ground.

You have that wayyyyy backwards my friend.

-Hal

I'll back what Hal says. It not cheap to run lines over a mountain made of granite or around lake regions. Many areas in Maine you can't go under ground and to set a pole requires drilling rock and don't forget about Frost.

You're probably right except in the Eastern half of the state, where we have hills, woods, limestone and still get plenty of wind and ice. Fatter poles all over here and more guy wires, but in the western half of the state, pretty much everything low voltage gets buried. I would think on average we have colder winters and hotter summers but less snow and much more ice and wind.