SANTA MARIA, Calif. - The U.S. has about 200 million utility poles all over the country. Many of them were installed after World War II.
PG&E is responsible for determining the structural integrity of its power poles on the central coast. It has about 2.2 million of them in the northern and central parts of California.
PG&E spokesman Danny Boyles says, "obviously every pole is going to have a time that its going to need to be replaced and that's why we do the inspections."
One resident, Kevin Robertson, said he wasn't even aware that the power pole in their backyard ever needed to be replaced.
"I didn't even consider or think or know that power poles would degrade over time."
Boyles says they have a rigorous inspecting schedule that they follow.
"We have to inspect every one of them every 3 years. This year today we've inspected about 183,000."
