ACROSS THE NORTHWOODS - Hurricane Sandy left thousands of residents along the East Coast without power. Here in the Northwoods, power companies are planning ahead to keep the power on.

Wisconsin Public Service wants to start a project to improve reliability in areas most prone to outages.

"It is a five year project, starting in 2014, and going for five years. The goal is to underground for reliability reasons approximately 200 miles per year for that five year period," says Richard Reitz, Senior Regional Electrical Engineer.

Statistics helped determine which areas will get power lines buried. Areas that lose power most often and amount of customers affected are places where lines would be buried. Soil conditions and geography also factored in. Several areas are already planned to have their lines buried.

"The key areas are the Post Lake area down by Elcho, the Pelican Lake area between Elco and Monico. Then the Boulder Junction area north of Minocqua, and then Highway 70 to the east of Eagle River, are the areas that we are targeting for twenty-fourteen," says Reitz.

The entire project is estimated to cost around two-hundred-fifty-million-dollars. Any customers impacted by the project will be notified once the project is approved and planning begins.

Story By: Melissa Constanzer