And then there’s the problem of the tree-huggers - a lot of the outages here in south Jersey were caused by trees being blown over on to power lines - in the rural areas this is to be expected, but even in a lot of built up areas it’s becoming almost impossible to keep trees adequately trimmed and controlled because of the greenies - in our town there is an “Environmental Committee” which must be consulted before any tree larger than 15” in diameter is felled, no matter how diseased or unattractive - they’ve eased up a bit because they’ve received so much resistance from a lot of people - one local cop told one of them that if they tried to interfere with what he did with his own trees they’d never know what hit them - but they’re still a major hindrance in the public’s being able to do what in many cases is known to be best for safety and the environment by those with at least a little common sense.....
Excellent post, and I only wish I could have included your citation about the tree huggers not allowing trees to be trimmed - the trees that would eventually bring down power lines.