Why Does Oklahoma Keep Its Power Lines Above Ground?

With snow and ice looming across Oklahoma, the same question always pops up right about now.

Why don’t we bury the power lines underground?

It’s a valid question. Especially if you’ve ever sat in a cold, dark house during an ice storm.

I grew up in an oilfield family and bounced around a lot. Different states. Different climates. Oklahoma is the only place I’ve lived where losing power for days, sometimes weeks, felt almost normal. And it nearly always comes back to weather.

Oklahoma lives in the uncomfortable middle. Freezing cold winters at times... Scorching hot summers on the flip side. That combination is brutal on power lines.

When ice builds up, it doesn’t take much. Lines sag. Poles snap. Trees come down. Then linemen head out once the storm passes and start stitching everything back together. Extended outages aren’t an every-year thing, but over the last couple of decades, most of us can name at least a few stretches where the lights stayed off way too long.

Winter isn’t the only problem either.

Spring storms do just as much damage. Wind. Hail. Tornadoes. Lawton lost power for days after a hailstorm. Parts of Tulsa stayed dark more than a week after severe weather rolled through. Same question every time. Why are the lines still hanging up there?

Because burying them costs a staggering amount of money.

Oklahoma actually studied this back in 2008. The conclusion was blunt. Tearing out and rebuilding a century’s worth of overhead infrastructure would cost far more than continuing to repair what we already have.

Utility companies have been burying new lines for decades now. Since the 1970s, most new developments get underground service from the start. That’s why newer neighborhoods around Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and growing metro areas fare better. But retrofitting older towns, rural areas, and long-established neighborhoods is a whole different beast.

So why not just push the utilities to do it anyway?

They’re not opposed. The real question is who pays.

That same study estimated burying Oklahoma’s power grid statewide would cost around $58 billion. Broken down, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars per square mile, using numbers from fifteen years ago. Adjusted for today, it’s even uglier.

To make it happen, residents would need to absorb massive monthly increases for decades. For most Oklahomans, that’s simply not realistic.

It’s tempting to say the savings from fewer outages would eventually cover the cost. In theory, sure. In reality, anyone who lived through the 2021 winter storm knows how this works. Utility companies recover costs. They don’t eat them.

The cost is only half of the issue.

If you haven't noticed yet, the ground in Oklahoma isn't what science would call "stable."

We have a ton of earthquakes, and while they're small, they do cause issues with foundations and structures. Almost as much as our clay soils do.

When it gets super hot and dry, the clay soils shrink. Casms open up in our own backyards, and homes typically shift. I can't even imagine the engineering that would go into designing an underground power grid that could survive all of that movement.

It's not happening.

The grid probably isn’t going underground anytime soon. Oklahoma weather isn’t getting gentler. So the responsibility lands back on residents to prepare.

That’s why Oklahoma recommends home generators or battery backups. Not because it’s ideal, but because it’s practical.

The storm hasn’t hit yet. Hopefully it fizzles. Hopefully the lights stay on.