The article about frequency of power outages in rural America, published April 6, blames “climate change.”

Many outages are caused by trees/limbs hitting the power lines. What wasn’t mentioned was any association to “human error.”

Talking just Maine, the ice storm of 1998 was the last major power line clearing done, so 20 years later (to 2018), trees had grown up and old, and lots of city dwellers have moved out to the rural community.

Also not included in the study was the ignorance (lack of knowledge) of these new rural dwellers. Do they know anything about maintaining their property? How to trim a tree, cut one down, run a chainsaw or even what a healthy versus dying tree looks like?

Do they even know whether they are responsible for trees on their property, or do they expect the town/state/Central Maine Power to take care of them?

Just in my neighborhood, there are two large landowners and lots of “new” homeowners. Since December 2023, there are about a dozen trees down or leaning, or are standing deadwood waiting to fall on the lines, in or next to the road. The two landowners are older and lease out their land, so they don’t walk their properties to see if there are any issues. The homeowners either are completely oblivious to their responsibility for their trees, or don’t give a darn or are clueless what to do.

The climate has always been changing. People shouldn’t blame the climate when human ignorance is to blame.

Richard Hatch, Hebron