Rain and lotsa wind.
About 3 years ago, I'm working in the yard when this fellow with a hard hat and a clip board comes walking up the driveway with a big smile. He said they were coming through the neighborhood polling the homeowners on a proposed project to put all of the power lines underground, said it would be cost effective because we always lose power during storms. My power line went through the trees across my front yard and was always a worry, not to mention that the neighborhood loses power during storms several times a year. I tell him I'll gladly sign up and even help install if they want.
Most of the power outages are from limbs or trees coming down on the wires that run down the street by the marsh beside my house that feed all of the houses behind me. This takes out the fuses on the pole and we get our power back when they replace the fuses. (I have watched this a lot over the years)
He goes on to tell me that the neighbor behind me will get the transformer on his property and they will run under my back yard to the side of my house where the meter currently is so the only thing I will see is no more overhead line. Sounds like a win. Says they need to talk to the rest of the neighbors on my street and if everything goes to plan they will be back in 6 months or so to complete the project.
Six months later underground utilities marking contractor comes in and puts little orange and yellow flags all over my back yard. about a month after that I come home from work and they have dug a hole next to my hose, installed a transformer on the rear neighbor's property and are about to run the cable under my back yard. couple of hours later and it is all finished. So I sit back and bask in the glow of never having to loose power during a wind storm.
and I haven't until about 2 weeks ago when we had a fairly mild storm come through just about time it got dark outside, nothing serious but then we lose power. I go out to look around and all of the houses in across the street and the rest of the neighborhood have their lights on but mine and the houses behind me are all dark.
got out my super LED blind-ya flashlight and went to investigate.... trees (3 of them) down across the street leading by the marsh. lines are down in the road, the whole bit. Next day when they finally got the trees cut, the lines up and the fuse replaced, my lights came back on.
My power used to come directly off the pole in the corner of my yard, it is on the main line feeding the whole neighborhood so how can this happen?? I went out and walked the lines to see where they go and what these folks did was to run all of the power for my neighbor behind me and my house (I guess nobody else agreed to their plan) underground to a pole on the street next to the marsh then ran the lines up the street to the main pole so now when a limb goes on that line, we all lose power. At least I don't have a power cable going across my front yard any more.
Got all of my solar lights charged up, lots of snacks and waiting to see what the wind will bring this time.
I apologize for the windy reply
