Seems to me this article is a lot like this article. At the end of the day, my basic point is still the same.
Houston's Galleria area had relatively few power outages following Ike, which area boosters attribute largely to projects to bury above-ground lines.The Uptown Houston District, created by the state in 1987 to oversee public improvements in the Galleria area, has spent close to $10 million in recent years to move or bury power lines, said John Breeding, president of the district.
"We may be known for the arches and rings at the intersections in our area, but we've probably spent more on burying power lines than anything else in recent years," Breeding said.
Projects to bury lines in the district cost $500 to $750 per foot, or between $2.6 million and $4 million per mile, Breeding said.
"You're not just burying the lines but the switches and transformers," he said. "So, something that you just attach to a pole up in the air becomes a $50,000 cost to put underground."
Floyd LeBlanc, a spokesman for CenterPoint who has worked with the district on those projects, said the original estimate to bury all the lines was closer to $40 million. When the company realized the district was concerned first about the aesthetic drawbacks of the above-ground lines, workers found less expensive ways to move some lines behind buildings, where they were less visible, rather than bury them.
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"I feel like burying lines should be something CenterPoint is allowed to put into the rate base," Breeding said. "At 10 a.m. Saturday after the storm, I walked into my building on Post Oak, hit the elevator button and went up to an office that was fully functional. It was like that for most of the area. Just think about the economic losses if a whole office building is without power."