Community Corner

When Will I Get My Power Back?

Patch asked Con Ed: What determines whose neighborhood will have service restored first?

Working from Starbucks—which has no food since deliveries didn't make it this morning—I've been approached by a number of people asking how Con Ed determines which neighborhoods to work on first.

So I called and spoke with company spokesman Chris Olert.

The short answer to when power would be restored?

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Sometime between now and 12 a.m. Thursday.

Of course you knew that already because you received the same call I did last night.

Find out what's happening in Pelhamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Here's what you may not have known:

As of 1:30 p.m. Monday, there were 1,000 Con Ed customers without power in New Rochelle. There are 54,700 customers without power in Westchester.

"We work first where we can fix the greatest number of outages with the fewest trucks," Olert said. That means the company works on a site-by-site—rather than municipality-by-municipality basis.

If Con Ed already knows you're without power—which they probably do—it does no good to call again. "It just ties up the lines when customers call every 15 minutes," Olert said.

Everyone without power received the same automated message from Con Ed.

"Obviously not all 54,000 outages will take until Thursday to fix. Every few hours the number of people without power decreases," Olert said. "I liken this situation to a one-car crash versus a 20-to-30-car pileup with an oil spill. One can be cleaned up fast. The other may take hours."

Does Con Ed take bribes?

No. Olert, who lives slightly north of here, is without power too. 

"If I could, I'd come and switch on your lights for you," he said. "We're making out best effort and have hundreds of extra workers on this. But out greatest priority is keeping our employees safe. The last thing we want is to answer calls about why we let our employees get hurt by taking shortcuts."



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