Grounded: Overhead power lines move below the surface Published July 29, 2015 By Airman 1st Class Kelsey Tucker 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. -- Airmen of the 20th Civil Engineer Squadron, along with civilian contractors, are in the process of replacing the old overhead power lines with underground ones along Shaw Drive, here. Replacing approximately 22,000 feet of overhead power lines installed in 1957, the ongoing project aims to protect the lines from damage caused by inclement weather and animals, decreasing the likelihood of outages while increasing safety and reliability. The current project focuses on the side of the base west of the flightline, though other areas of the base have already undergone this transformation and other areas will be scheduled to do so in the future. Due to the occasionally changing roads and accesses around the base, several of the power line poles became either too close to, or too far away from, the street. Some are leaning, have cracks, or have been damaged from car accidents. "A major concern when having overhead power lines is weather conditions," said Gregg Winegar, 20th CES electrical engineer. "With the frequency of wind and rain storms, and the probability of hurricanes, the structural integrity of both the lines and the poles is always in question." "By putting them underground it's a little more expensive in the short term, but in the long term it'll help us out with our maintenance (costs) because they won't be susceptible to all the weather conditions," said Winegar. "And it looks aesthetically pleasing." Though the project seems to have been going smoothly so far, there have been occasional setbacks when boring underground, such as drilling close to or into unknown existing utilities. "We don't know exactly where everything is," said Winegar. "We know where most of the (underground utilities are), because we have the utility maps, but there's older stuff that was never identified on a map before." Despite this, the project is going very well - so well, in fact, that it's actually 18 - 20 percent ahead of schedule, said Tim Varner, 20th CES construction representative and the primary inspector for this project. Varner, who was stationed at Shaw when Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, recalls the devastation left in its wake and assures that with the movement of the power lines underground, the base will be better prepared for future natural disasters. "It's not if, it's when the next hurricane rolls through here, and there's nothing for it to destroy like Hugo," said Varner. The project is scheduled for completion in July 2016.