County and Utility Officials Discuss Restoration After Irene

Westchester County officials are hopeful that a series of meetings with the utilities that serve this area will prevent some of the service related hiccups that plagued restoration efforts during Tropical Storm Irene.

On Monday, the county Board of Legislators’ Committee on Environment and Energy met with representatives from New York State Electric and Gas and Consolidated Edison to iron out some of the kinks that occurred during storm recovery.

Problems ranged from lack of dry ice to what some customers perceived as an inconsistency in the system used to prioritize which neighborhoods received power first.

“It was a good first exchange,” said Legislator Peter Harckham, D-Bedford. “The question of communication still needs to be addressed, particularly in the north. My municipalities were frustrated by a lack of communication with NYSEG, so we still need to address that.”

Legislator John Nonna, Pleasantville, questioned the way Consolidated Edison allocated resources in his district, which encompasses Pleasantville, Mount Pleasant and North Castle. He said Mount Pleasant and Pleasantville received attention quickly, but he received complaints that there weren't enough crews in North Castle.

“There seems to be a dichotomy between knowledge on the part of the Con Ed municipal liaison as to dealing with downed wires versus dealing with restoration,” Nonna said. “While there was a point where enough crews dealing with the downed wires, nobody really knew when restoration was going to take place.”

Harckham inquired why NYSEG doesn’t have a municipal liaison program similar to the one that Consolidated Edison has in place.

“To be able to take someone around and say this is a downed wire, we got to get this clear, because this is a critical route, that’s a critical piece,” Harkham said.

Jim Salmon, a spokesman for NYSEG, said his company has fewer customers than Consolidated Edison, but covers larger portion of the state. Salmon said his territory, the eastern region, covers 11,000 square miles, 26 counties and 270 municipalities by itself.

Salmon said NYSEG tries to staff qualified personnel in every county emergency operation center. But that was tough during Tropical Storm Irene, because the storm impacted so many counties, according to Salmon.

“Obviously it’s not possible for a utility like NYSEG, which—just in my region— has 270 municipalities, to put trained people in each individual municipality,” Salmon said.

Legislator Alfreda Williams, D-Greenurgh, wondered why Consolidated Edison failed to set up dry ice distribution sites in the central part of the county.

“There was nothing in White Plains and of course, they were running short,” William said.  

Sandy Miller, director of public affairs for Consolidated Edison, said the utility’s first priority was to focus on the areas that had been hit the hardest.

“We kind of looked at all of the outages that we had and the percentage of customers that were out and that’s where we choose,” Miller said. “If we had a lot of dry ice, we would’ve expanded those locations.”

Miller said there is a claims form on the utility’s Web site for people who wanted to seek reimbursement for food spoilage, but that doesn’t apply to spoilage caused by storms.

Harckham suggested that Consolidated Edison consider changing that policy as a show of goodwill to its customers.

Patrica Podolak, a Yorktown Heights resident, said she still had a number of unanswered questions after Monday's session.

“The problem is not all trees,” Podolak said. “They are very quick to try and blame it all on the trees hitting power lines. In this case, you could see emergency preparedness was and how resources were deployed were issues. And the one thing they never discuss is the aging infrastructure—the things that can’t take stressors, such as poles and lines.”

Harckham noted the state Public Service Commission, which received an invitation for Monday’s session, was not in attendance.

“I think that’s really an abomination,” he said.

Harckham said more meetings will be scheduled in the coming weeks.