“Every Single Storm is always the same with Con Ed …There is little or no preparatory activity and the post storm reaction is abysmal.”
Eastchester Supervisor Tony Colavita
“Con Edison’s response to Isaias in Westchester has been wholly inadequate—a management fiasco. We need to unplug Con Edison and replace it,”
Assemblyman Tom Abinanti
“Sadly, the changes we fought for after Hurricane Sandy, and in subsequent storms have not resulted in meaningful improvement and we cannot undergo this again,” State Senator Shelley Mayer.”
By Dan Murphy
For those who have lived in Westchester for decade, it has become baffling that every few years, after a big storm, our electric service provider seems more and more unprepared and ill equipped to turn our power back on. For most of Westchester, that service provider is Con Edison, but in Northern Westchester and Putnam its NYSEG. And both continue to have problems getting their customers out of the dark as one day turns into four days and into a second week.
Many Con Ed customers in Westchester have had enough, most notably in Yonkers, where is some homes the lights didn’t come on for 10 days. They want Con Ed ‘cancelled” “fired” or “replaced.”
Longserving elected official in Westchester are also running out of patience at Con Ed. Eastchester Supervisor Tony Colavita recently wrote a letter criticizing Con Ed, but also asked State Senator Shelley Mayer and Assembly member Amy Paulin to take action against the utility.
“I have been Eastchester Supervisor for many storms during all seasons,” Colavita writes. “Every single storm is always the same regarding Con Ed’s preparation and response. There is little or no preparatory activity and the post storm reaction is abysmal.
Colavita explained that while the Town’s work crew had cut away fallen trees and debris from roadways and power lines, Con Ed arrived four days later to fix the power. “Our residents had to remain without power because of managerial incompetence.”
In his letter to Sen. Mayer and Assembly member Paulin, Colavita calls on the state to craft laws which will “provide for penalties and renumeration to rate payers for failure to timely restore service. The key is that the funds paid or credited to customers must not be included in any future rate increase but come from anticipated profits and dividends to shareholders. The penalty cannot be permitted to be rolled into a rate increase. “
While Colavita calls for Con Ed to pay back their customers for their incompetence, Assembly member Tom Abinanti has had enough and wants to “unplug” Con Ed.
“Con Edison’s response to Isaias in Westchester has been wholly inadequate—a management fiasco. In the short run, we need Con Ed to re-arrange its management – to put in place people who will better prioritize, bring in the necessary workers and coordinate with local governments to restore power to our communities. In the long run, we need to unplug Con Edison and replace it with a new power provider for Westchester.”
“Con Ed has stripped its workforce to a mere shadow of what it used to be,” said Abinanti. “Con Ed’s business model is to profit its shareholders at the expense of the public’s safety. Con Ed’s reliance on ‘mutual aid’ from neighboring utility companies has again been proven to be a faulty strategy which does not timely deliver enough on-the-street workers.”
County Executive George Latimer has called for a ‘Reserve Corps’ of crews to be created and on call for the next storm. “Clear to me that the single biggest reason why it takes so long for power to be restored is lack of manpower. The utilities do not have sufficient permanent workforce to put enough “boots on the ground” in the first 48 hours after a weather incident.
“Therefore I am proposing the creation of a UTILITIES RESERVE CORPS. Recruited from utility worker retirees and other sources, they would receive an annual stipend and receive annual updated training a week per year, and be called upon to provide immediate emergency deployment much the same way the National Guard or Army Reserve works. There are a thousand details to work out, but the current system does not allow utilities to staff up year-round the manpower they need for the yearly incidents that may occur. We simply need more workers available at the front end of the post-storm recovery. The next hurricane is just one more letter in the alphabet away.”
State Senator Shelley Mayer stated, “This storm has demonstrated the inadequacy of our utility companies, our telecommunications providers and frankly, the Public Service Commission, in protecting New Yorkers. With the announcement of joint State Senate and Assembly hearings, we should promptly come up with new approaches to force policy change, exact fiscal penalties, and drastically improve communication and oversight. With some modest exceptions, most of our local utility and telecommunications companies have failed Westchester’s consumers.
“Year after year, many utility companies seek rate increases to make investments in infrastructure and storm resiliency, but almost a week after Tropical Storm Isaias, tens of thousands of my constituents are without power, many of whom are vulnerable. And incredibly, internet and phone company providers, providing essential services during this pandemic, failed to communicate with customers at all while thousands went without phone and internet service now essential for their lives and livelihoods. Local residents, and elected leaders charged with serving them, deserve to understand what went wrong and how things will be improved to ensure this pattern does not continue year after year. Sadly, the changes we fought for after Hurricane Sandy, and in subsequent storms have not resulted in meaningful improvement and we cannot undergo this again.”
