Sure. I misunderstood you. I thought you point was that there was no reason why anyone should STILL have aboveground utilities. One argument that could be made in LA now is, people are suffering, and we need to get the power back as quickly as possible. It'll take a couple weeks to prop the lines back up and get everyone whole, but could take months or years to bury everything. So while underground may be ideal, after a hurricane is not the time to do it.
Quite the contrary. When everything is torn from the poles - that's the perfect time to do it.
You incur the expense once, and eliminate the risk.
I can pretty much assure you that if they buy every transformer available, they won't have enough to do EVERYTHING.
But they'll have enough to do SOME. And every time, if that approach is used, eventually, the risk will be eliminated.
Think about it:
Trees down
Wires down
buildings damaged
Yards a mess
It's the perfect time to go direct burial. With the new rigs where you can actually do horizontal drilling, you can run the PVC jackets, install the sweeps, drop down the pad mounted transformer and pull the wires. Then install the service drops.
Yes, it's work, but they are already doing the work.
It's a decision. Everyone knows how hard it is. But the journey of a million miles begins with a single step.
We can talk ourselves out of it because it's too hard. But we're lying to ourselves - it never gets easier, or less expensive. Next year, it's more, and the year after, more.
Carpe diem. Or repeat this next year or two years from now when the next hurricane blows in.