Tuesday’s severe storm hit College Park, Maryland, particularly hard — violent wind and heavy rain damaged homes, brought down trees and left much of the city, including the University of Maryland, without power.
College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn told WTOP that burying the city’s power lines has been the subject of an ongoing conversation in the community.
“It would definitely be a benefit to the durability of our grid, to making sure that we are less likely to lose power when things like this do happen,” Wojahn told Megan Cloherty on WTOP’s DMV Download podcast.
“We would love to see that happen. The challenge is that it’s very expensive to do,” he said. He estimates it would cost $1 million a mile to bury the power lines.
Wojahn said the city’s entire budget is around $20 million; he said it would be impossible to bury the lines without outside funding. The city applied for a federal grant to pay for storm-proofing power lines but was rejected.
But in recent years, he said, Pepco, which serves College Park, has been proactive in maintaining equipment, including trimming and removing trees that could bring down power lines.
Pepco said Tuesday’s storm had an impact on the power of more than 41,000 customers in its service area in D.C. and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland.
As of Friday afternoon, PEPCO reported that 59 customers in College Park were still without power.
