WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. March 18,2010: Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner says he will be writing the New York State Public Service Comission and requesting a full investigation and evaluation of how Con Edison decides to commit Power De-Energizing crews and restoration crews across the metropolitan area during this week’s unprecendented defusing and restoration of Westchesterites’ electricity where 79,000 Con Edison customers were left without power by the tropical storm that lingered and lashed the county last Saturday

Feiner says he wants the PSC to invesitgate why Con Edison did not address the major outages in Westchester first, which were four times that of New York City, where the Con Edison effort apparently went first.  

Feiner said no other elected officials– even in his own town — are  joining him in this challenge to the PSC for an examination of how Con Edison sets priorities in which communities get handled first. “This is hurting people,” Feiner said. “I’m getting about a hundred calls a day this morning and I was getting thousands before Tuesday. The first two days Con Ed did nothing for Greenburgh, Yonkers, New Rochelle.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey, Interview with Bob McGee, Con Edison Director of Media Relations. March 17, 2010:WPCNR asked some questions of Robert McGee, the Director of Media Relations of Consolidated Edison to clarify the issues Con Edison faced responding to the storm one lifelong White Plains resident described this way: ” I have lived in White Plains my entire live (70 years). This is without question the worst natural disaster to hit the city in my lifetime.”

Mr. McGee responded to WPCNR by e-mail today, with answers to WPCNR questions about the company’s response to the “Storm with No Name” that devastated New Jersey, New York, Long Island and  Connecticut this weekend, and maintains steadfastly the company did not lag in its response:

Here is the transcript of that e-mail interview.

WPCNR: I’d like to know, in the presenty situation, how does Con Ed handle downed wires with the local DPW departments?  Does Con Ed have to dispatch a crew to turn off the live wires, then the City DPW clears the trees on the wires…then does Con ED that turn off the live wires and leave….or do they move on to turn off the next set of live wires…and the downed wires await a 2nd Repair crew to actually repair the wires?

Bob McGee, Con Edison:  Many of the calls we are receiving involve tree and branch removal in Westchester. If there is no effect on our equipment or service, it is up to the customer or municipality (depending on whose property the tree is on) to arrange removal of the item(s).

If it does impact our service, we will remove only what is necessary to allow service to be restored.

Normally, when our service is impacted, we initially provide site safety (someone to ensure the public stays away from a live line or, when verified not to be energized, to simply block the area off), followed by a damage assessor, who evaluates the problem and the resources likely to be required, followed by a tree trimmer, and then the crew to make actual repairs to the service.

Keep in mind that more than one crew may be required to restore the service. Some run the cable, others may install the poles, etc. Additional work farther away may be required for the larger area to be fully restored. In order to expedite restoration, we work closely with municipalities to coordinate our efforts with theirs.

In some cases, our repair crews go out at the same time as the (Con Ed) tree trimmers. The trimmers do what is necessary to provide access and allow repair. Debris is being piled up and addressed at a future date after all customers are restored.

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WPCNR: Is it correct to say that Con Ed had 211 crews of its own working in the first two days of the storm with HALF on for 12 HOURS and the OTHER half on for the other 12? and that you expect some 480 more by Wednesday…strictly for the Westchester area?

Does this mean that Con Edison has only 1/3 the ready access repair crews actually in its employ or contracted for at any given time to handle damage caused by just a tropical storm such as we experienced this weekend?

Bob McGee, Con Edison: Safety followed by restoration are our top priorities during the emergency.

Right now (Wednesday at Noon), we have 550 two-to-six person crews working in Westchester. Additionally, we have 591 individual site safety inspectors and damage assessors working. 

Although crews are assigned to work at shifts beginning at 7 am and 7 pm, they usually work 15-16 hours in these kinds of circumstances, as opposed to 12.

Utilities, as you know, provide regional mutual assistance crews. (We sent crews to Atlantic City recently, and of course, after Katrina, we sent crews to New Orleans.) It is cost prohibitive to have utility workers on staff to meet the needs required for tropical storms or hurricanes.

We do storm drills regionally with other utilities on a regular basis, and our professionals work well in conjunction with other utility professionals in this regard, with relationships and practices that are long established and frequently revisited.

The practice with regional mutual assistance is for utilities to prepare ahead of time but to hold deployment until the weather passes, so accurate assessments can be made as to the impact on the system.

If, as with the snowstorm a couple of weeks ago, when utilities close to us also had significant needs of their own, we reach further afield for assistance.  

WPCNR: . But, here is the question, how many out-of-state, out-of-your-area are utility companies servicing communities, and how many are private electrical contractors for hire (independent businesses) — a breakdown of your numbers would be good so we can see what the spread is. .Hypothetical question if I may…. If the majority more than half are private contractors,why couldn’t you have called them in enroute  48 hours in advance and if the storm was not as serious as your weather forecasters indicated to you — you could say Saturday night…we don’t need you and they just turn around and go back — since they are private contractors.  Is this a matter of Con Ed trying to save big money on paying them “in anticipation?” How do these contracts work with your private contractors and the utilities you say come on in and help in these dire circumstances…do they have the right to decline? What are the general terms?

BOB MCGEE, Con Edison: John, the short answer is this is an all-hands on deck response. We don’t wait to save a buck; reputation management is far too important by comparison. We strive to work as safely as possible, as quickly as possible. We have working relationships with our contractors, and they respond. There is no lag time in our response.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. March 17, 2010: As of 10:15 A.M. E.D.T., Con Edison’s Storm Center reports 24,299 Westchester customers are still without power as the electric powerup continues into Day 4 with hundreds of out-of-state power crews coming to the County’s rescue. Most of the out-of-state help arrived yesterday morning and more are expected today swelling the “connection force” to 675 crews.

The hardest hit communities continue to suffer, though outages have been reduced approximately 40% to 50%  in Yonkers, Greenburgh, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Scarsdale and White Plains. Yonkers currently has 7,147 customers disconnected; Mount Vernon,6,604; Greenburgh, 6,386; Scarsdale, 3,355; and White Plains, 1,626.

Running down the Con Edison list, many of the rural villages in northern Westchester are in the single digits, with the more populous areas from the center of the county to the Bronx still suffer outages in the hundreds, though down significantly from earlier in the week numbers.

Ardsley reports 60 out; Bedford, 22; Briarcliff/Ossining, 544; Bronxville,353; Dobbs Ferry,549; Eastchester 2,034;Elmsford,464; Harrison,1,535; Hastings,469; Irvington, 2,040; Larchmont/Mamaroneck, 526; Mount Pleasant,872; New Castle,73; North Castle, 536; The Tarrytowns, 1,176;The Pelhams, 93; Pleasantville,76; Port Chester, 409; Rye City, 1,874.

Rob Astorino, the Westchester County Executive, who lives in Mount Pleasant had his power restored within eight hours by Sunday evening,  according to The Journal News, although Mount Pleasant as of Monday morning had 649 customers still out, one of the lower totals compared to the major cities and of course, Scarsdale.  Mr.Astorino was quoted in the Journal News today as saying, “I do think at this point Con Ed has been responding pretty well.” It was Astorino’s first comment on Con Edison’s emergency performance, other than saying Westchester would be applying for disaster aid.

Today, Con Edison made this statement to the media:

Con Edison, with an assist from out-of-state utility crews and contractors, has placed nearly 147,000 electrical customers back in service since last weekend’s devastating wind and rainstorm.

“We’ve made significant progress, but we won’t be satisfied until every one of our customers is back in service,” said John Miksad, senior vice president of Electric Operations.  “We will have even more out-of-state utility crews on the streets today and expect to see the number of outages drop significantly again by this evening.”

As of 6 a.m. today, approximately 26,000 customers remained without power.  The areas most affected were Westchester, where approximately 24,000 customers were out, and Staten Island, where fewer than 1,200 remained without service. The Bronx has about 700 customers out of service.

Thousands of company support personnel are continuing to work around the clock to help the crews that are addressing the most destructive rain and windstorm to hit New York City and Westchester in decades.

Restoration crews are expected to swell to 675 today as the additional out-of-state utility crews arrive.  Utilities from Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky and Massachusetts are assisting Con Edison’s crews. 

The company expects to have all storm-related outages in the Bronx restored by this afternoon, followed by Staten Island on Thursday evening, and Westchester on Friday.  All Brooklyn and Queens customers affected by the storm have been restored.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. March 16, 2010: White Plains residents were coming back on as the day wore on today as reinforcement power crews convoyed into town. Power crews from Michigan and Hauppaugh, Long Island were spotted working the blacked out Gedney Farms area. By 6:30 P.M. White Plains Con Edison customers without power had been slashed to 2,837 down about 3,000 from the noon-hour.

Across the county approximately 12,000 customers had been restored within six hours according to the Con Edison Storm Center figures.

Here’s the power story as of 6:30 P.M.: Of the cities hit hardest, Yonkers reports 9,021 customers without power, down 5,000 since Monday midnight; Greenburgh, 6,991; Mount Vernon, 6,870; New Rochelle,5,508; Scarsdale, 4,310; and White Plains,2,837; Harrison, 2,615; Larchmont/Mamaroneck, 2,212;  Irvington, 2,040; Rye City, 2,038.  The pace of restoring power has picked up considerably since reinforcement power crews arrived.

In other areas: Ardsley reports 108 unconnected; Briarcliff/Ossining, 556; Bronxville, 401; Dobbs Ferry, 574; Eastchester, 1,550; Elmsford, 471;  Mount Pleasant, 1,130; North Castle, 651; The Tarrytowns, 1,463; The Pelhams, 172; Port Chester, 508.

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WPCNR CITY CIRCUIT. From the Mayor’s Office. March 16, 2010: On the city website in an update dated March 14 (Sunday), the city provides a short solution as to why it takes so long to clear city streets of fallen trees. Incidentally, the city also reports the YMCA on Mamaroneck Avenue is offering free showers to the public until 9 P.M. The report on the DPW-Con Ed repair delay notes:

” (White Plains) DPW crews have already cleared the trees that had no power lines attached to them on Holbrook Road, Bayne Place, Barker Avenue, Bryant Avenue, Midland Avenue, Richbell Road, Alan Drive, Patricia Lane, Lake Street and North Broadway, Rosedale Avenue, Whitewood Lane, Soundview Avenue, Vermont Avenue, Chatham Place, Gedney Esplanade, Rolling Ridge Road, Ridgeway, Miles Avenue, Prospect Avenue, South Broadway, Longview Avenue, and Ridgeview.

DPW crews cannot touch trees that have high voltage wires entangled in them. It’s illegal and unsafe. Before they can clear a tree, they must get approval from a Con Edison electrical inspector because the wires may still be energized. (Editor’s Note: It is unclear whether a third Con Edison crew then comes in and replaces the severed wires.)

The Prospect Park area was hard hit because all the main roads were cut off because of downed trees and power lines. 

Con Edison brought in a crew at 8am Sunday to clear the area. Two trees fell across the street from the White Plains High School, bringing down 13,000 volt lines. Those lines were disconnected by Con Edison.  There was also a downed tree blocking Old Mamaroneck Road by Hazelton Avenue, and another downed tree on Mamaroneck Avenue near the Harrison border.

Some secondary roads that have downed trees will be cleared.  They include Midland Avenue, Soundview , Gedney Esplanade,  Church Street, Westview, Leith Place, Jefferson Avenue, and Vermont Avenue. (This presumably has taken place by now, late Tuesday afternoon.)