How it works

Overhead wires move into conduit. The equipment does not disappear.

This drawing is a teaching sketch. It is not a design for a Walton street, and it is not a before-and-after photo.

  1. Pole and wires
  2. Conduit
  3. Pad-mounted box
Overhead lines compared with underground conduit On the left, a pole carries wires beside a tree. On the right, the wires are in a conduit under the sidewalk and a pad-mounted transformer remains above ground. Overhead today After undergrounding Wires are in the wind, near trees. Pad-mounted gear Conduit under the corridor The box stays. The pole can go, once every wire has moved.
Overhead, the power lines are on a pole, exposed to wind and limbs. Underground, those lines sit in conduit. A transformer or switch still needs a box on a pad, with room to work around it. The drawing is not to scale.

What residents should expect

Where a sentence below names FPL, it describes FPL’s own program. In Walton County that is relevant largely around Miramar Beach and Inlet Beach. CHELCO serves much of Santa Rosa Beach, Freeport, and inland Walton. These notes are not a CHELCO design and not a promise that either utility will build a project here.

The road may open in sections

Some work is an open trench in the shoulder or the pavement. Some is directional boring, a method FPL says it uses to limit how much of a yard is opened. Palm Beach’s town updates describe both drilling and ordinary street closures, with local access kept. Expect a mix, not a single tidy method.

Boxes remain

FPL tells customers on its neighborhood program that a transformer may need an easement. The utility says a standard easement on those projects is 10 by 10 feet, and that the size can change with field conditions. A Walton design would set its own easements. The point is the same: equipment stays visible and reachable.

Service switches at the house

Crews convert the line that runs to the meter. On FPL projects, customers may be asked to acknowledge a small junction box by the meter. Power is off for a short planned window during the switch, which is different from a storm outage.

Poles wait on the other utilities

Electric, cable, and phone often share a pole. The pole comes down when the last attachment leaves. If only the power line moves, the pole can stay.

It is not invisible, and it is not outage-proof

Lines can still fail. Faults can take longer to find. Surge and standing water can harm underground gear. The benefit is fewer outages from wind and trees on the spans that were moved.

You would hear about it before a crew arrives

On FPL’s program, the utility says it contacts customers at the start, explains the work, and asks for an easement only where equipment has to sit. A county corridor project should do at least that much, in writing, before construction.

Sources: FPL Storm Secure Underground Program (boring, easements, junction boxes, outreach); Town of Palm Beach project note, week of September 28, 2026 (drilling and local-access street closures).