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Con Ed to face the music
THE JOURNAL NEWS
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Disgruntled customers, public officials and Consolidated Edison representatives are expected to come face to face Monday at a hearing on the latest round of prolonged power outages.
The hearing before the Westchester County legislature's Environment and Energy Committee echoes a similar fact-finding mission held by lawmakers after last winter's ice storms.
Legislator Tom Abinanti, D-Greenburgh, chairman of the environment committee, is co-hosting the meeting with fellow lawmaker Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers. Abinanti envisions it as a combination debriefing and intervention.
"While we can't control the weather, we can control its impact on us," Abinanti said. "We can plan for severe weather, and we can appropriately respond. Con Edison has done neither. (Their) response has been totally appalling. It's time they got their act together."
The utility now estimates 35,000 customers lost power at the height of Tuesday night's severe storms.
People who want to tell their stories, but who cannot attend the 3 p.m. meeting, can fax or e-mail them to the board.
Lauren Marcus Eisenberg, who lives on Miles Avenue in White Plains, plans to register a gripe about what she called "abysmal customer service."
Marcus Eisenberg said the utility first promised to have her power back by 5 p.m. Thursday, and then, in an automated message, revised that to 10 p.m. An hour after the second deadline, she said, she called for an update, but Con Edison's computers were down for service, leaving a representative unable to check on her case.
About 8:30 a.m. yesterday, she said, Con Edison called with another automated message to say her power was now back on. It was not. A utility representative suggested she check her fuse box, then promised to put in an "emergency ticket."
Finally, about 11:15 a.m., beeping electronic devices signaled her ordeal had ended.
"I'm bouncing off the walls, I'm so furious," Marcus Eisenberg said a short time later. "It's one thing to say, 'There's a lot of damage and we really were working hard and don't really know' ... but to say you we'll get power by such-and-such a time and then not deliver and to have this absurd message saying you have power ... was outrageous."
Gabriel Farkas, who lives on Highland Road in Greenburgh, said he also had a problem getting information when he called a Con Edison hotline at 4:30 a.m. yesterday.
Farkas got the number from an automated emergency-alert message system used by Westchester County. The message told him that by 10 p.m. Thursday, Con Edison should be able to project when customers' power would be restored.
Farkas said he reached an operator, but "she had no idea, absolutely none" about his street.
Asked this week if Con Edison was doing anything differently in this storm than it did with the storm last winter, spokeswoman Sandy Miller said the utility was trying harder to keep local officials updated on its progress.
Abinanti said he believed that was true, but "I don't think they're getting better at dealing with the public."