On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:52:41 -0600, Swingman wrote:

krw wrote:
On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:55:30 -0600, Swingman wrote:

Pat Barber wrote:

Swingman wrote:

The Gulf Coast desperately needs a change to underground electrical
infrastructure due to the historical and ever present hurricane threat.

In every house I build I try mightily to install an underground feed
from the pole/line to the new service even though it adds +/- $1k to
the cost, location and municipal building requirements permitting.
In North Carolina, you would be hard pressed to NOT
find a underground service. They made that the standard
here well over 30 years ago.

IL, NY, and VT, too. Not sure when they did it in AL (we've only been
here a year) but all the new developments are underground.

Then you have much better politicians then we have ... assuming that
there is such a thing as a "better politician", of course?

Bad assumption. Underground utilities aren't coming out of the
politicians pockets either. Politicians never care about unfunded
mandates.

Utilities here are regulated by the State, and payola to politicians for
favorable regulation, would of course, never cross their minds, and
politicians would never think to accept such favor.

Yeah, right ...

Underground utilities are funded mostly by builders (costs passed on
to buyers, obviously).