Buried power lines spare neighborhoods from being affected by storms

MIAMI - When bands from Hurricane Helene moved through South Florida , some 25,000 homes in Miami-Dade and Broward lost power, but the neighborhood of Las Olas Isles in Fort Lauderdale remained unaffected.

Tom Godart led the charge to get their utilities buried. He said it took 12 years.

"The idea was just to harden our, you know, our utilities so that, you know, in case of a storm, we weren't without power. We weren't without Comcast, we weren't without communication," he said.

Godart said the neighborhood looks better with the power poles gone and replaced with ground-level transformer boxes.

"We have removed all the poles, we have taken down all the overhead utility lines. We resurfaced the streets, and we put up these beautiful new light fixtures, and all underground," said Ingrid Kindbom, the project manager.

That means when there's wind or rain — there's no chance for downed lines.

"You're not gonna have the wind or a blowing branch or anything falling on the power line, because they are underlined underground," Kindbom added.

But it did not come cheap. Ninety percent of homeowners had to approve the plan and agree to foot the bill.

"You take a total cost and you spread it out over 30 years. So, it's really $1,700 working out to about $1,700 per year per household over 30 years," Godart said.