SOUTH CAROLINA, USA — Tropical Storm Helene left over a million people in the dark in South Carolina. Now, some are calling for more powerlines to be buried underground to prevent downed trees from sparking outages.
News19 spoke with The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina (ECSC) to learn more. They say while the idea of placing powerlines underground seems like a practical solution, it can be costly.
"A lot of the people that are asking for lines to be buried underground, you know, there is a cost associated with that and so you have to wonder how this is going to impact power bills, and that is a question that co-ops are trying to evaluate," said Avery Wilks, Vice President of Communications for The Electric Cooperative of South Carolina.
Carolyn Moore, who has been a resident in Columbia all her life, says she agrees that lines should be underground. She believes it would ease the repair process.
"I'm sure it would be very expensive, but probably in the long run, it would even out in terms of all the repairs," Moore said.
“The con is that its far more expensive to bury electrical lines underground and we maintain 77,000 miles of electric lines, and so doing that and trying to bury our entire electrical system would be wildl expensive in a way that a lot of our cooperative consumers across the state can’t afford," Wilks explained.
Wilks said other cons include longer wait times for repairs and damage underground during storms like mudslides.
Either way, President of Dominion Energy Keller Kissam says damage is inevitable.
“Everybody says well undergrounding, let's underground all the lines but all the uprooted trees, there’s a lot of underground electric that’s exposed and broken along the sidewalks that you’ll see," he said.
Lifelong Columbia resident Robert Anderson says he agrees that there is no need to have lines underground, adding that people should be more prepared for incoming storms.
“I mean, you already should be prepared for something like this anyway. Regardless, you should have generators, food, non-perishable because you never know," said Anderson.
Electric companies urge residents to remain patient while power is continuing to be restored.
“We were hit by the most destructive storm the western half of South Carolina has seen in decades, and unfortunately, thankfully, it happened very seldom but unfortunately there is no silver bullet solution to a category 4 hurricane.”
According to Dominion Energy, more than 95% of customers have power restored in the Midlands.