County Commissioner Carolyn Cummings is calling for a deep dive with both the county and the city on the future of underground utilities in Leon County.
County staff presented to the commission their after-action report on Hurricane Helene at their final meeting of the year on Tuesday, showing that the storm cost the county $1.3 million, which County Administrator Vince Long said will be eligible for reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The report mentioned several items related to the storm such as steps county staff took in the days following, as well as emergency preparedness and lessons learned from the May 10 tornadoes. But it failed to mention the impact to local utilities and the power grid, overseen by the City of Tallahassee.
That raised questions for Cummings.
“Power outages … (affected) some individuals for days and weeks that resulted (in) spoilage of food, having to go to hotels, being displaced from homes,” she said.
“Now I know that … there were, grant funds to assist states and cities, municipalities, with transitioning from overhead utilities to underground. Do we know if the city has a major plan, or if there have been applications for grants?” she added.
County Commissioner Carolyn Cummings participates in a Blueprint meeting at City Hall on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. (FILE PHOTO)
The city, which is in charge of providing power for much of the county, has not held any conversations or had an agenda item yet on the future of undergrounding its lines, though it became a point of discussion in recent elections.
City Commissioner Curtis Richardson, who was re-elected to another term in November, was asked about underground utilities at a Capital Tiger Bay political candidate forum. While he supported discussions about the possibility, he said the city simply does not have the money to move power lines below the ground, estimated by some at over $1 billion.
Helene caused widespread destruction to the Tallahassee power grid and utility repairs cost the city more than $10 million, which is also expected to be reimbursed by FEMA, according to latest figures filed with Florida’s Department of Emergency Management.
“I can tell you that the city does a very good job with respect to evaluating their system in terms of continuity (and) what you see a lot of times with new development is they are getting underground,” Long said at the meeting.
Cummings then opened the door to collaborate with the city on if there is a way to partner with them for utility-related grants: “We love our trees and so we’re not going to remove our trees, but trees … contributed to a lot of the issues,” she said.
In other business
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In the wake of the T-Pain concert, County Commissioner Nick Maddox asked Kerry Post of Leon County Tourism what steps need to be taken to continue to attract large performers to the area. The answer? Venue space, which Post said could be solved with the completion of Doak Campbell Stadium’s renovations.
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Commissioner David O’Keefe asked county staff to do a traffic and safety study of vehicles and pedestrians from the intersection of Capital Circle and Highway 27 eastward for five miles to come back as an agenda item in the new year.
Arianna Otero is the City Solutions Reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her via email at AOtero@tallahassee.com or on Twitter/X: @ari_v_otero.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Hurricane Helene: Leon pushes for Tallahassee underground utilities