In an update to a story the Daily Business News covered last month, the issue of an exposed high voltage cable at Sunny Acres mobile Home Park in Tampa, Florida, has been resolved.
According to WFLA, electric provider Duke Energy dispatched crews to bury the high voltage line, after a series of reports on the community.
The story stretches back to September 2016, when Hurricane Hermine soaked the area, then short-circuited the buried power line.
Duke Energy installed a high voltage wire that runs the length of the community and another one around the perimeter. After they did, they then claimed that it’s up to the community to pay to bury the line.
And that sparked a disagreement.
“I can’t go out my back door without tripping over an electric wire. And they tell me to make sure that nobody hits that with anything sharp,” said resident Francis Dorsey at the time.
“It’s up to us to pay an electrician to fix it, well yeah, from the meters to the trailers [sic], that’s understandable. But, the electric line to the meters? No, that’s always been the power company’s place to do it.”
Duke Energy refused to pay to bury the cable, restating their claim that they did not own it.
Dorsey decided to take matters into her own hands, and enlisted WFLA to help. In their numerous reports about the situation, they discovered that there were other communities that had similar challenges with Duke Energy.
And, if Duke Energy did not address the potential issues, they faced potentially significant liabilities if someone was electrocuted.
Late last week, Duke Energy reached out to Sunny Acres. They said that they wanted to resolve the problem.
Within 48 hours, crews were on the scene to bury the cables.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” said resident Katherine Rogers.
“Duke Energy sent a marvelous crew out here to do it, they were very professional,” said Dorsey.
“My hat’s off to Duke Energy for doing the right thing, the right way.”
According to a statement, Duke Energy is also happy to have the issue resolved.
“We believe replacing a portion of the underground service line and the temporary line it installed at the park is a satisfactory solution to ensure safe and reliable electric service. We considers each situation on a case by case basis,” said the statement.
Our original coverage on Sunny Acres is linked here. ##
(Image credits are as shown above.)
Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews
