So here in the Northeast we are still recovering from the aftermath of hurricane Irene. Here in eastern Massachusetts, the biggest problem is power outages.
Power outages are a fairly common occurrence here. The reason is, if the wind blows really hard for a few seconds, this inevitably knocks down trees which fall against the electric cables that are strung up on electric poles. The exact same thing happens whenever we have an ice storm. Large overhanging branches get covered in ice, they droop or break off, they fall down and break the power lines.
Like so many things, this is big news now, but once the power is back on, everyone will forget about it. This is too bad, as with a little bit of effort, these kinds of weeklong power outages can certainly be mitigated if not eliminated.
A friend of mine in the Bahamas told me that they have a policy down there where the electric company can cut down any tree that they think might fall over and take down a power line. They understand that hurricanes are going to be a fairly common occurrence, and it’s cheaper to cut down the tree before it falls over and knocks out a power line. Of course, some people get upset when they wake up in the morning and see the electric company on their front lawn cutting down their favorite tree, but it’s their system and it works.
This whole problem brings up a completely separate issue for me, and this one is purely aesthetic. I just hate looking at power lines. Have you ever taken a good long look at one of those wooden telephone/electrical poles in your neighborhood? They are just ugly. I mean really ugly. There is absolutely no consideration for aesthetics when putting these things up, and the wires are strung up higgledy-piggledy everywhere. On most city streets, there are strict rules about how large commercial signage can be, but there seems to be no restriction on where one can put one of these electrical poles. They lack any kind of symmetry or visual consideration, and they don’t even go straight up, they lean every which way. Some have little ladder rungs sticking out, others have all kinds of nails and staples in them, one in my neighborhood has a whole 'nother pole attached to it kind of sticking up at an 80 degree angle. Most of us would be annoyed to have something so unappealing in our basements, and yet we are perfectly accepting of having these hideous things ornamenting our roads and public spaces every 30 feet.
On the news last night, a power company spokesman said that it would be prohibitively expensive to take all these cables and put them underground, hence solving most of the storm related power outages and the aesthetic problem at the same time. I don’t buy this. They don’t have to bury all the cables all at once. If you were to take 1% of their profits and devote them to an ongoing process of burying electrical cables, okay, it might take 20 years or more, but at the end of that, our lives would be so much improved, in both practical and aesthetic dimensions.
Of course, to achieve that end would require a long-term commitment of volunteer community activism, and we are all so busy just keeping our heads above water that is doubtful that will ever happen. As long as the power is on, well, out of sight out of mind. But if you ever wanna talk about the concept of “arts education,” well, just take a look at any urban landscape that is so severely marred by power cables and poles, and understand that this is what the opposite of arts education, i.e., constant desensitization by being exposed to nonstop ugliness, is all about.
© Justin Locke
