Several roads around Main Street in Conway may soon have more road blocks and detours for a project that will hide power lines.
The project’s manager, DDC Engineer Eli Jones, says installing the wires underground could reduce hurricane or storm power outages.
“With the system being underground, it would be more reliable and quicker to turn back on,” said Jones.
The half a million dollar project will hide power lines from Fourth Avenue to Beaty Street.
“Being here at the coast, the first areas that we’re taking underground were areas like Ocean Boulevard and Surfside Beach, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Pawley’s Island, and the thinking is that those are the areas that are often affected by the wind storms and the hurricanes and those pole lines typically come down with the big storms and take a long time to get back up,” he said.
He says some merchants say the construction could interfere with business. Others, like Fourth and Main store owner Laura Abernathy, aren’t so sure it will have an effect.
“I think if we have the product that everybody wants, they’re going to come around the river if they have to swim it,” said Abernathy.
Jones says although there could be benefits to placing the wires underground, like enhancing the look of the city, there could be a downside.
“There may be other outages or other problems, big floods may actually impact it,” said Jones. “They might be harder for them to put it back together.”
The first week of March was the original construction start date; however, DDC Engineers are continuing to work out issues with SCDOT, and have no specific date planned yet.
There are plans to extend the project down to Wright Avenue and Highway 378.
