Sarasota Power Lines Move Underground To Guard Against Hurricane Outages

WUSF | By Kerry Sheridan

Published May 22, 2019 at 4:28 PM EDT

Nearly - lost power during 2017鈥檚 Hurricane Irma. Utilities blamed most of those outages on falling trees and debris that knocked over power lines.

To strengthen the electrical grid against future storms, Florida Power and Light is moving more power lines underground.

A pilot project is underway in one residential neighborhood in Sarasota with 44 homes.

FPL crews showed reporters how they bore a hole in the gully of a home鈥檚 front yard. The power lines are routed beneath the soil, and get connected to a junction box at the house, and to a transformer box by the street.

FPL workers connect underground power lines to a home in Sarasota

There鈥檚 no visible damage to the lawn. And FPL covers the costs 鈥� paid for as part of customers鈥� regular utility bills.

But there鈥檚 a catch: everyone in the neighborhood has to agree, says program manager Enrique Formoso.

鈥淭hat is our biggest challenge to get all 44 people to agree with it. Because it is hard enough to get two people to agree. So it takes us a little time but people start to see what it is and what the benefits are.鈥�

The process is called 鈥渦ndergrounding.鈥�

The utility company says it has spent nearly $4 billion since 2006 on a range of programs to make its grid more storm resilient.

Already, 47 percent of FPL鈥檚 power is underground. The utility serves about 460,000 customers in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

鈥淥ur main thing is to get better reliability to all these customers and right now we think undergrounding is the best method,鈥� said Formoso.

FPL says it won鈥檛 move power lines underground in areas that can get flooded easily. And residents cannot ask to be part of the program. Neighborhoods have to be chosen based on how hard they were hit in the past.

Scott Foxworthy says Hurricane Irma knocked out his power for more than a week

鈥淏efore Hurricane Irma, about two days before the storm we lost power and then after the storm we didn鈥檛 have power for about a week,鈥� said Scott Foxworthy.

They have a well, which means he, his wife and their six children couldn鈥檛 get any running water either during that time.

So when he heard about the project to put power lines underground was coming to his Sarasota neighborhood?

鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 sign up fast enough,鈥� he said.

FPL has 85 Storm Secure Underground Projects planned for the Sarasota area.

It has already completed eight such projects throughout the state.

A few people in this Sarasota neighborhood were hesistant at first, but eventually agreed to the project.

Ron Chappell said that for him, signing on was a 鈥渘o-brainer.鈥�

鈥淪ince I work for the phone company I know what preventive maintenance is like, and this is like, the ultimate preventive maintenance,鈥� he said.