[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo leveled threats against Con Edison, calling the embattled utility company’s response to Topical Storm Isaias “unacceptable.”
“There will be storms and the utility companies know that. I’ve spoken to them about this numerous times,” said Cuomo, a Democrat. “The essential service a utility provides is at this point preparing for a storm and recovering from a storm.”
Yet as of Wednesday, Aug. 12, more than a week after the Aug. 4 storm hit the region, Con Edison was reporting that roughly 350 of its Westchester customers were still without power, according to Alan Drury, a Con Ed spokesman. “The remaining Isaias outages involve extensive damage and complicated restorations for individual customers,” Drury said.
The storm, which made its way up the Eastern Seaboard as a category 1 hurricane, tore through the Tri-State region with 70-plus mph winds. The damage was severe as trees toppled above ground utility lines throughout Westchester and New York City. In total, 257,000 customers lost power from Isaias, the second highest number of storm-related outages in Con Edison’s history only rivaled by Hurricane Sandy’s 1.1 million outages in 2012.
In Westchester, the hardest-hit communities included the cities of Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and Rye, as well as the towns of Cortlandt and New Castle.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a Democrat, said Con Edison’s performance was “grossly deficient” and called on the state to ensure that the utility company is properly staffed to handle the next significant storm.
“The Governor, the New York State Public Service Commission, elected officials of both parties at every level and the customers themselves all recognize… Con Ed was simply not ready,” Latimer added. “It cannot be acceptable to take a week or more to fully restore power, and in this case, from a storm that was not of the magnitude of Hurricane Irene or Superstorm Sandy.”
On Aug.5, Cuomo directed the state Department of Public Service to launch an investigation into Con Edison, Verizon, PSEG Long Island, Central Hudson Gas & Electric, Orange and Rockland Utilities, and New York State Electric & Gas to understand how the utilities’ failed in such a big way.
“The large volume of outages and the utilities’ failure to communicate with customers in real time proves they did not live up to their legal obligations,” he said. “The worst of this situation was avoidable, and it cannot happen again.”
Coincidentally, the state Public Service Commission, PSC, announced a $10.75 million settlement with Con Edison and Orange and Rockland Utilities on Aug. 13, after investigating the companies’ response to two winter storms in March 2018; Con Edison is paying $9.5 million of the total. The PSC called the combined settlement “the largest ever of its kind for failure to adequately execute a utility emergency response plan.”
CONTACT: chris@hometwn.com
