Sun Sentinel: Katrina and Wilma expose antiquated US infrastructure and neglect by power supply companies

SunSentinelKatrina and Wilma hurricanes expose antiquated US infrastructure and neglect by power supply systems

South Florida's largest daily Newspaper the Sun Sentinel reported: "In Tamarac, Florida, a woman complained for years to Florida Power & Light Co. about a decayed utility pole, one so decrepit that a tree was growing out of it. The company never replaced it, and the pole snapped in Hurricane Wilma, leaving her without electricity for 11 days. In Lighthouse Point, Florida, frustrated by years of power outages, the mayor hired a consultant who earlier this year found 27 poles in need of repair. Many of those poles are even more damaged after this hurricane season, the city's mayor said. In the Croissant Park section of Fort Lauderdale, a couple warned FPL last year about a hollowed-out pole so riddled with woodpecker holes that cable and telephone workers refused to climb it. It, too, went down in the storm. "We reported this so exactly what happened wouldn't happen," said Danny DeAvies, standing next to the broken wooden shaft behind his house in Croissant Park. "That's what drives me crazy. My pole's rotten. We report the pole's rotten, and it goes down." Throughout South Florida, such stories of poorly maintained utility poles and FPL's failure to respond are being told by angry residents, frustrated by days of power outages they think could have been avoided if the company had paid attention to their complaints. As it crossed South Florida on Oct. 24, Hurricane Wilma split or toppled an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 utility poles, contributing to power outages that left more than 98 percent of the region in the dark. Almost two weeks later, there were still 341,000 South Florida customers without power as of Saturday afternoon. Company executives say they were surprised by the amount of damage to poles. But a July report by the Florida Public Service Commission had warned that FPL's program for inspecting distribution poles was inadequate. It said the company's contractor performed inspections at such a slow rate that it would take 60 years to reach all the poles in the system. Florida has no laws requiring that utility poles be regularly inspected, said Kevin Bloom, spokesman with the commission. In contrast, California has established regular inspection cycles and record-keeping requirements for its electric utility companies that include checking wooden poles. In the state's urban areas, most wooden poles must be visually inspected once a year. Workers from C.W. Wright Construction Co., a Virginia contractor hired by FPL, came to the neighborhood Wednesday to haul away the old poles and erect new ones. As four workers in hard hats dug up the ruined pole behind Simoncelli's house, exposing a splintered, moist interior, one commented that it looked "75 years old. Seventy-five decades," said another C.W. Wright worker, Steve Harlowe, standing a few feet away. "The thing's rotten," Harlowe said. "It's the oldest pole in the world, I believe. You look down in the pole, you see rot. It's one of the rottenest I ever saw, I do believe."