By Megan McKoy-Noe, CCC, January 2012
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The path of power to your home is guarded by silent sentinels — utility poles that are under constant attack by Mother Nature and, sometimes, by people.
“More than 97,000 miles of line, supported by utility poles, keeps power flowing across North Carolina,” says Tom Pritchard, chief utility engineering officer at the Jones-Onslow EMC cooperative in Jacksonville.
Nationwide, electric cooperatives own and maintain 2.5 million miles of line stretching across three-quarters of the U.S. landmass. Some lines are buried, but more than 2 million miles of lines are above ground. Since there are generally 18 wood poles for every mile of distribution line, electric co-ops rely on more than 37 million poles to safely and reliably deliver affordable power to your home.
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