Spikes in Environmental claims can often be attributed to adverse-weather patterns.
Electric utilities in the Northeast encountered that problem in 2011 when they saw a spate of third-party property contamination resulting from leaking electric transformers, says Nancy Milkey, project manager of hydrogeology at civil-engineering and environmental-consulting firm Tighe & Bond of Westfield, Mass.
The problem was the result of bad weather—and the bad driving that often follows, Milkey says.
A spate of severe weather—ice storms, a tornado and a hurricane—resulted in numerous electrical transformers crashing to the ground from their perches on utility poles, Milkey explains. In some cases, the weather knocked the equipment off the poles; in other cases, cars skidded out of control during bad weather and crashed into poles, toppling them.
With less-severe weather in 2012 (at least pre-Sandy), the number of transformer-leak problems decreased, she adds.
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