By Lolita Huckaby
BEAUFORT
Considering the flood of information, and misinformation that’s surrounded our two most recent natural disasters – Helene and Milton – certain words of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) might have been lost in your news reading.
Shouldn’t we be thinking about placing power lines underground?
It’s certainly not a new idea, but when Graham made his comments, following a visit to the Aiken area to check on Hurricane Helene damage, he echoed thoughts that area tree-lovers have been saying every time Dominion cranks up their tree-cutting schedules and roar through residential neighborhoods, leaving maimed foliage in their wake.
It’s difficult to complain about the line-clearing procedures of the utility companies when thousands of residents in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida are still without electricity, much of it because of fallen trees. When Graham visited Aiken, the number, just in S.C. was more than one million citizens waiting for their lights to come back on.
Graham, and other municipal politicians interviewed in a report by the Charleston Post and Courier, said as the rebuilding of electrical systems is taking place because of storm repair, the time is now, as they said, to do it right.
“If we can put men and women on the moon and look at going to Mars, we can bury electric cables underground, economically,” said one Spartanburg County Council member. “In 2024, we’re better than this.”
Yes, the costs of burying lines underground is expensive. Some reports calculate it’s three times more expensive to put the lines underground than run them overhead. But those costs could be shared by local, state, and federal sources, with Graham stating he would work to get money from Washington for the effort.
Places like Rock Hill began working with their utility companies to bury lines underground more than a decade go after experiencing a harsh ice storm.
Indeed, the City of Beaufort and Beaufort County already require new residential developments to place their utility lines underground, as part of their infrastructure costs. City officials worked with Dominion, or S.C. Electric & Gas (SCE&G) at the time, to place the power lines underground when Boundary Street was redeveloped back in 2018.
And yes, underground wires are no guarantee the lights will stay on in cases of hurricanes. But it’s a start and like Graham said, the time is now.
‘Blame game’ works its way into local elections
BEAUFORT – In case you missed it, there’s been a certain amount of “blame game” brought into the already contentious presidential election with the right wing folks accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or more specifically the person who’s in charge, aka President Biden, of not being responsive and the left wing accusing the other side with calling out the crazies, aka, mountain militia who are reportedly, as of Monday’s news loop, “hunting” for FEMA workers.
As if the victims of Helene and Milton, and the officials trying to help them, don’t have enough to focus on.
In the past week, the “blame game” was brought into the Beaufort mayoral election by none other than former Mayor Stephen Murray who had been to the mountains along with City Councilman Josh Scallate to deliver supplies and came back with a personal blast to current Mayor Phil Cromer for not doing enough to protect the local community.
It happened at last week’s City Council workshop when Murray rose to speak about the local outpouring of supplies and the volunteers’ trip to western N.C. to deliver more than 100 pallets. But then Murray accused Cromer of complacency and a failure of duty.
Cromer, who is facing opposition from Scallate, denied the former mayor’s criticism, but it was a subtle example of the “blame game” being played right here at home.
Lolita Huckaby Watson is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself in trying to stay neutral and unbiased. As a columnist, these are her opinions. Her goal is to be factual but opinionated, based on her own observations. Feel free to contact her at bftbay@gmail.com.
