The following is my column that will appear in the Mt. Vernon Gazette, Springfield Connection, The Mt. Vernon Voice, and the Potomac and Stafford Locals in the week of March 4, 2018.
Underground Utilities, Transportation Solutions Get AttentionThe second to last week of the General Assembly session brought a conclusion to most committee work in the legislature, passage of several important bills and a fierce wind storm.On Friday, a powerful wind storm struck Virginia and inflicted millions of dollars in damage to people and property, far more harm than most people anticipated. Many people lost electricity, some for several days. According to Dominion Energy, it was the fifth worst power outage in company history after Hurricanes Isabel, Floyd, Irene and the 2012 Derecho.The mass destruction reaffirms my view that we need to invest in utility undergrounding immediately. The newer developed parts of Northern Virginia where power lines are underground did not suffer outages and while undergrounding is expensive, the disruption of people’s lives has great value also.
