This is one of the old articles I was referencing:
https://www.starnewsonline.com/artic...s/605126317/WM
As the 2007 hurricane season comes to an end, so does the long-term project to bury electric power lines on Brunswick County’s barrier islands.
Removal of overhead power lines on Oak Island is “just about wrapped up,” said Don Hughes, vice president of operations at Brunswick Electric Membership Corp.
For the past two weeks, Brunswick Electric crews have been steadily reeling in and taking down power lines near the Oak Island Golf and Country Club and along Oak Island Drive, he said. Other crews are removing lines on Yacht Drive, along the Intracoastal Waterway.
After that, power poles will be removed. Some of the poles are leased for use by telephone and cable companies and will remain, Hughes said.
Oak Island is the last of the county’s barrier island communities to complete the multimillion-dollar power line burial project, which was first approved in 1999 as a cooperative effort by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brunswick Electric and the county’s communities to protect the electric power infrastructure from hurricane damage, Hughes said.
A FEMA grant provided $6 million for the project, which covered Holden Beach, Ocean Isle Beach, Sunset Beach and Oak Island.
As the largest island community, Oak Island’s power line burial took the longest; the project started in 2004.
“We’ll have 99.9 percent of the overhead down and converted to underground. We’re winding it up,” Hughes said.
The island’s power was switched from overhead to underground in June.
The lack of hurricanes this year - despite weather predictions to the contrary - helped the project go smoothly, Hughes said.
“The main thing is that doing this helps provide good service to our members,” said Hughes, who said Brunswick Electric has about 8,000 Oak Island customers.
Hughes said having power lines underground, encased in a protective covering, is safer than overhead lines because they are not exposed to the elements and operate in a stable environment. While not completely failure-proof, the lines can be depended on not to fall prey to strong winds or ice, or pose an electrocution danger to kite fliers or people who work outdoors at heights above ground such as painters, cable company employees or the electric cooperative’s own linemen, he said.
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