You can’t bury much power in Houston… they’d be underwater in the next hurricane. Underground lines means underground vaults and transformers too…
Some areas of Houston are 16 feet or less above sea level..
https://en-us.topographic-map.com/map-wv2nh/Houston/
Bury a 8 foot transformer vault (they’d be deeper than that likely but just say 8 feet)
And get a 10 foot storm surge and you’ve got 2 feet of water higher than the transformer vault… try fixing that! Above ground is the way to go there
They had massive amounts of help from west Texas and Oklahoma power people coming in. I drove through Houston yesterday. No gas and no traffic lights make some areas a real pain.
They’ll get it fixed up, after all Beryl did hit as a cat 1 hurricane… at least they aren’t below sea level like NOLA