Sandy Legacy Has Utilities Opening Wallets for Drones
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One slice of Hurricane Sandy’s $80 billion in economic damages was $3.3 billion just to repair the New York-New Jersey electrical grid -- a casualty that’s inspiring utilities to re-engineer their disaster plans.
The worst-ever U.S. storm has power companies including Consolidated Edison Inc. and Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., New York and New Jersey’s largest, considering flying drones to get fast snapshots of destruction, reinforcing power poles with concrete and building “self-healing” networks that reroute electricity around damaged circuits.