The Biden administration announced Wednesday it will spend $95 million to help strengthen Hawaii’s electrical grid in the wake of deadly wildfires that swept through parts of Maui earlier this month. The fast-moving fires were the deadliest in modern U.S. history, killing more than 100 people on the island, forcing thousands to evacuate and destroying the historic town of Lahaina.
On Wednesday afternoon, President Biden addressed both the government’s long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts on the island, as well as the administration’s ongoing response to Hurricane Idalia, a major storm that made landfall in Florida on Wednesday morning.
“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore,” Biden said. “Just look around. Historic floods … more intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage like we’ve never seen before.”
It’s expensive as hell, but if we buried power lines, these sorts of disasters won’t happen. Also has other safety benefits, such as cars not running into live powerline poles, people not stepping on downed lines in an earthquake, windstorm, hailstorm, etc, and lines not clogging up sidewalks with the visual clutter of poles and lines.