Update 14 Oct: Duke Energy Progress tells me this line is 115,000 volts, not 140,000. Post updated to show the true voltage.
401 Oberlin residents never have to charge their cellphones
As I’ve occasionally driven by the new 401 Oberlin apartments at the corner of Oberlin Road and Clark Avenue, I’ve begun to notice just how frighteningly close the building is to a high-voltage transmission line paralleling it on Clark Avenue. High voltage lines pulsing with electricity in the neighborhood of 115,000 volts are less than two dozen feet away from the top floor of this building. Scary thought. It’s something that is conspicuously absent from their fancy building renderings, I’ve noticed.
Twenty years ago I rented an apartment with my brother and friend on Thea Lane in southwest Raleigh that was located about 50 feet under the 115Kv transmission lines that run alongside the Beltline. I never thought much about it until the day I was adjusting my tape deck (remember those?), getting ready to record a CD. When I bumped up the gain slightly on my tape recorder, I was surprised to hear an unexpectedly loud hum coming through the tape heads! Yikes! I wasn’t going to wait around for science’s definitive answer on the possible dangers of electrical field exposure, I was ready to get out of there!
Now look at 401 Oberlin, which is twice as close to power lines as I used to be. Electrical field strengths become twice as strong at half the distance, so 401 Oberlin residents are almost certainly swamped in a very strong electrical field.
Bottom line? No way in hell I would ever live there!
I’ve got an inquiry in with Duke Energy Progress to determine how much juice is actually flowing through that transmission line. I’ll update this post if/when I hear back from them.