In article ,
Han wrote:

There needs to be sufficient investment to make transmission
lines and substations more resilient, MUCH more resilient to these
storms. It is inexcusable that street level work has to wait 3 or more
days because those higher levels of infrastructure need to be repaired.
IMO (not an engineer at all), those parts of infrastructure need to be
strengthened very much. Ideally, the street level infrastructure needs
to be hardened as well, either by going underground, or by really sverely
trimming trees.

Under the ground in NYC is an absolute cluster **** of layers upon
layers upon layers of utilities that date back more than 100 years, and
much of it is not in good condition. For example, the water mains that
feed the entire city are controlled by enormous valves that are more
than 100 years old, long overdue for replacement, yet cannot be shut off
because they're afraid they would crumble and fail catastrophically.
Which, eventually, they will, even if they don't touch them.

I think there are plenty of documentaries out there that detail our
crumbling infrastructure fairly well. Maybe we should give up being the
world's thug and start a new WPA with the money.