It's not that simple. There was a stretch of many fairly modern townhouses off Ridge Road in Mahwah that lost power for days and they did have underground utility cables. Then there's the installation cost and the lack of visibility to see what is wrong when wires are hidden underground as opposed to up in the air where visible.

Just one of the many incorrect assumptions about the storm and the infrastructure. Burying the lines would not only be prohibitively expensive (resulting in huge increases in utility bills), but it would take much longer to repair underground lines since they have to be dug up, re-buried etc. And yes, underground lines do fail.

I continue to be fascinated by how ignorant some people are with respect to how prepared the state was or how the utilities responded to the damage. No they weren't perfect, but people simply have no comprehension about the extent and area of damage. Tens of thousands of trees down, poles and lines down all across the state and people b**** because their power wasn't restored in 2-3 days. What part about "you will be without power for 1-2 weeks possibly longer" didn't you understand? I didn't like being in the cold and dark for 1 1/2 weeks myself, but I guess I have a clue and planned according to the warnings I was hearing a week in advance. The fact is that people didn't really believe the storm would be that bad, so they didn't prepare and then flipped when it was just as advertised. Oh and about the bad communications from JCP&L, I understand why they didn't provide detailed information about when the power would be restored on a street by street level. Because they simply couldn't judge the timing based upon the extent of the damage.

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And if JCP&L did provide detailed estimates, people would have become enraged if their power wasn't restored at the exact minute estimated. Also, all because you didn't see trucks directly in front of your house that doesn't mean they weren't working to restore power.

If you have young children, elderly or ill folks in your home and simply can't be without electricity for an extended period, then you need to take responsibility and make arrangements to stay somewhere else or get a generator. When I read these comments "I have young kids and they are cold" "I am taking care of a sick parent I need my power back," I understand it's frustrating but again, we were all warned about this many days in advance. You need to plan for how you are going to take care of yourself and your family in the event of a disaster. It's as simple as that.

Florida doesn't have harsh winters. How do concrete power posts hold up in harsh winters? This is why we can't just start the "hey those guys do this" approach to fixing problems.

Your house has concrete & rebar in its foundation. How's it holding up?

Ever been thru a hurricane? We loose power too here in Florida. The first hurricane I was here for, lost power in the town I was staying in for 2 weeks in 90-100 degree weather with no wind. My neighborhood has underground lines that are still routed to utility poles just like in NJ where am originally from. Cost is always a factor when you talk about putting all lines underground. With all the flooding, you will still have outages. Never mind when the transformers above blow up.

I am so sorry my home state had to go thru such a terrible storm and sustain such damage. Very Proud of how you are all pulling together! God bless you all and have faith, you will come back better than ever!

How about removing the trees which grew up through the wires and were conveniently put right next to sidewalks and whose roots were likely shaved and cut when they pushed the slabs up?

That sounds good, but what if you made it so it was a magnetized titanium post and the wires were made of iron? That would be awesome. I'm not sure how you keep the titanium magnetized though. Good luck!

What does the magnetization and wires made of iron do?

They just make it more fun!

It's not the utility poles, Ridgewooder; it's the trees. Take a look at how many which were under power lines and planted right next to sidewalks came down and took the wires and transformers and some poles with them.

Mark: Agreed. I live in the Willard area which has probably more trees down than any other in Ridgewood. Hence the titanium poles dug in 10 feet and wires enclosed in pipes between the poles. They would be impervious to being toppled or town by falling trees.

Agreed with you, too.

But the wires and transformers would likely still come down, even with poles made out of something other than wood (maybe less so, though we don't know for sure). In Glen Rock, I saw plenty of stuff on the ground while the poles were still standing, or maybe bending over a bit. :-)

The least JCP&L and PSE&G can do if they want to continue using late 1800s technology (wires strung from poles is late 1800s technology, right?) is to charge us late 1800s prices.

That's why lowering the reservoirs is a risky strategy but the companies were directed by the governor's order who to my knowledge has no degree in meteorology. There was not much rain at all in northern NJ from that hurricane, it was the tidal surge that created flooding in some places such as Hoboken, Little Ferry and Moonachie.

The other part of this is that there was in fact no draw down for some of the reservoirs as it was not needed. For instance Wanaque was at 60 percent of capacity at end of August, it was 70% immediately after Sandy and today stands at 85% of capacity coming into wet season, so things should work out. So as far as Ricky's comment is concerned, there was no drawdown in most instances as it was not needed.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?01386990

There was no draw down? I thought I read in the media that there was in Bergen/Rockland. If so then that was for the best. Anyway, it's a risk either way. You don't draw down and perhaps have more over flow from a storm. You do draw down as what was supposed to be done before Sandy expecting 5 to 10 inches of rain and there was only 1 inch or so in most of northern NJ.

Whatever. What does the Governor not having a meteorology degree have to do with anything? He was informed BY meteorologists that several inches of rain might fall, so he made an informed decision to lower the reservoirs. I remember seeing comments before the storm complaining that he hadn't yet ordered lowering them, and people were freaking out because they thought massive flooding would result. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. There was no way for anyone to know exactly where the heaviest rains would fall. We only knew a hurricane was coming right into NJ. Hindsight is 20/20.

>> He was informed BY meteorologists that several inches of rain might fall,<<
Give me a break here. He was paying attention to all the media reports like the rest of us and bowed to a public who don't realize that even today these so called experts cannot make exact predictions. You can't play around with the water supply in that way.

Had the hurricane produced 10 inches of rain in a 12 hour period, lowering the reservoir levels wouldn't have made that much of a difference for those residents living in the flood plains of the Passaic River and the Saddle River in Bergen.