I sit here entering my third day without power, for the third significant outage in November. The well pump can’t pump so no water (toilets), no lights, no heat … no fun!

After camping out in my house for a full one quarter of the month, I can’t help but wonder at what point does unforeseeable acts of God become more appropriately labeled unreliable system design?

We appreciate the Puget Sound Energy crews working hard for long hours in adverse conditions to fix the problem. This must be expensive for PSE. But, since this happens every year, it is clear that the expense is not great enough to cause the company to invest in upgrading the system to underground cables. It’s time for us to insist our politicians make undergrounding a normal cost of doing utility business in Island County.

Please pick up your phone, call your county commissioners and tell them it is time Island County caught up with much of the rest of the country and underground all its cable feed utilities. A reasonable approach would be to pass a county ordinance that any construction would trigger undergrounding all utilities on that route and that all cables would have to be underground in say five to 10 years. During cold weather, this can be a health and public safety issue for our senior citizens, children and the house bound.

John Hudson

Oak Harbor