“That said, the high voltage lines on the giant towers aren’t generally where the power outages occur, as the trees are below those lines and can’t fall on them.”
You’re right. So the question there becomes whether people are willing to pay TWICE what they pay now (for at least 5 years, if not 10 years) to get their existing lines buried, as well as the lower voltage feeders to their neighborhood.
I suspect that if you had that referendum, you’d realize why so many overhead lines remain. They may be ugly (to some of us), but burying them is neither free, nor cheap.
And then there is the matter of burying the lines to the each house, which is a personal expense, and also expensive.
Burying pre-existing lines is expensive, but doing it from the very beginning isn’t too bad.
All of the new developments here have the lines buried.