Today's early news brings the report that one of the DC area's busiest traffic arteries, Interstate 270, was completely blocked in both directions for the early part of the rush hour, and will remain partly blocked for at least several hours. It's one of those days that makes me glad I don't commute any more.
Reports further indicated that the cause of this huge inconvenience was power lines down across the highway. I assumed it might have been the violent thunderstorm that passed through the area last night but in fact, it was another of those errant tractor/trailers going off the road.
The cause doesn't really matter. My first reaction was to ask myself why power lines were suspended directly across this major highway in the first place. As long as we continue to string our power lines along poles, this kind of disruption can, and will, continue to occur both from weather and from traffic accidents. The answer is to bury those lines.
Power companies resist this. As always, it's a question of profits. It's cheaper to erect above-ground lines than to bury them. Is this really true, once the costs of having repair crews constantly on duty and paying them overtime, and once the effects of lost productivity are factored in?
One of the major goals of building the interstate highway system, when it was conceived, was to establish a road network that was secure, that would be built to withstand at least some basic kinds of military destruction, if the nation were attacked. It seems we've gotten away from that cold-war thinking, but it may not hurt to reconsider it as we engage in a war on terrorism. With electrical wiring strung all over the place, an enemy might just choose to hire a few semi rigs to be driven down a highway and crashed at the right points, as a means of sowing chaos and preparing for an attack.
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Posted by: Shariz | December 02, 2011 at 01:43 PM