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W PNCR County Clarion-Leger. From the Westchester County Department of Communications. July 31, 2006: County Executive Andy Spano held a meeting with Con Edison today, as solely reported by WPCNR, and after that meeting, the County Executive issued this the following statement. No other statements about Con Edison explanations and plans for dealing with future communications were made:

·        At a meeting with Con Edison today, Spano was assured by the utility that it has already brought in extra crews and notified others to be on standby in the event there are any major power outages.

Spano reminded residents that if they do lose power to make sure they notify Con Ed of the outage by calling 1-800-75-CONED. Do not assume that the utility knows you are without power.  If you see a fallen wire, you should notify your local police. In addition, everyone should  own a basic phone (one that is not powered by electricity) as these are the only kind of landlines that will work during an outage.

·        All county beaches and pools will be open for extended hours Tuesday and Wednesday until 8:30 p.m. with reduced rates. The fee for pools will be $2.50 for adults or children with a county park pass (as opposed to $5.75 for adults, $4 for children and $3.75 for seniors). For people without a pass, it will be $5, instead of  $10. Beaches are free at Playland and Glen Island, but parking rates remain in effect. Go to www.westchestergov.com/parks for details. The longer hours will continue Thursday if the heat wave continues.  (Please Note: Playland pool is the site this week of Westchester Swimming Championships. Therefore, that pool will close to the public at 3:30 p.m. )

·        The county’s Department of Emergency Services has contacted all local governments in advance of any heat-related problems to offer assistance. The county is ready to open its Emergency Operations Center if needed.

·        To help residents cope with the soaring temperatures, the Health Department has a 24-hour “Stay Cool” Information Line, (914) 813-5620, which provides tips on how to stay cool in the summer heat and identifies air-conditioned locations such as libraries, shopping malls, movie theaters and senior centers throughout the county where residents can go to beat the heat.  A listing of some air-conditioned community locations is available on the Health Department’s website, www.westchestergov.com/health.

·        The county Department of Emergency Services is gathering information about where local governments have set up “cooling centers” for their residents. Currently, these are:

o        Elmsford: Senior Community Center, 10 North Stone Ave., 10 a.m.- 8 p.m., Mon.-Thurs.

o       New Rochelle: Hugh Doyle Senior Center, 94 Davis Ave., Tuesday and Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

o       Hastings: The courtroom in the Municipal Building and the Andrus Memorial Home (neither facility has back-up generators).

o       Yonkers: Coyne Park Community Center, Nodine Hill Community Center, Cola Community Center, Chema Center, Congregation of the Sons of Israel, St. John’s Park Pavilion, Bronx River Road Community Center, Sacred Heart H.S. Cafeteria, Nepperhan Community Center

                        For specific hours and addresses, residents should call their local municipality.

“We are taking whatever steps we can in advance to deal with this weather,” Spano said. “I urge residents to use common sense when dealing with the heat. At our end, we remain ready to assist local governments and residents.”

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WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. July 30, 2006: The power is back on but the memory of the chaos lingers on. After 9/11, millions were sent Westchester County for improved “emergency” communications. Dozens of meetings were held to improve county and cities’ coordinated efforts in a disaster. Last week, Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains saw how they worked when they called city hall and city hall did not know how many homes were out. They saw how they worked when they called the police department and could not find out what roads were closed and open. But, perhaps WPCNR is too harsh.

What does Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains think about how our county and city, and cities communicated with residents in an emergency — the first really big one we have had since 9/11?

Was the information authorities gave you when you called, or that you heard on the radio or read here on WPCNR adequate — because that is all we got. I only selected adequate and inadequate — because, it was not good. Our leaders said they were ready for an emergency and had communications programs in place supposedly for an Indian Point disaster or whatever. Well,  July 18-19-20-21 was a test. How did the county the city do?

Send us your disaster stories — good and bad.

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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. By John F. Bailey. July 27, 2006. UPDATED 11:32 A.M. E.D.T.UPDATED 4:45 P.M. E.D.T.: Donna Greene, spokesperson for the Westchester County Department of Communications, reported today that Westchester County Executive Andy Spano will hold a closed-to-the-public-and-press meeting with Con Edison officials Monday in the Michaelian Building to discuss Con Edison response to the three weather-related power calamities that afflicted Westchester residents in Yonkers, Valhalla and assorted communities, including White Plains, Scarsdale, Harrison, New Rochelle, Pelham and Port Chester last week.

The Mayor’s Office of White Plains, said upon learning of this meeting, that Mayor Joseph Delfino is preparing a letter to be delivered to the County Executive listing issues the Mayor wants Mr. Spano to address with Con Edison performance that affected White Plains during last week’s swath of destruction that ravaged White Plains neighborhoods. The Mayor’s Office said the letter is being drafted and will be issued this afternoon and delivered to the County Executive. As of 4:45  P.M., that letter from Mayor Delfino has not been received by this reporter.

Michael Kaplowitz, County Legislator, told WPCNR that  as of 1:30 P.M., he had not been notified by the County Executive of the Monday meeting. Asked if he would attend if invited, he said he thought so. Asked what he, Kaplowitz, had thought of Con Edison’s policy shift in which they would not pay for food spoilage claims Westchester residents had suffered because of storm damage, Kaplowitz said he was “dissappointed.”

Asked if he thought Westchester County should attempt to reimburse its residents foir the $8.75 Million Con Edison would have been prepared to pay them if they honored storm damage, Kaplowitz said “No,” that Con Edison should be working with the county and try and come together with the county and make a gesture to the residents by paying the claims instead of hiding behind their statutes allow them to get away with (not paying food spoilage caused by storm damage outages).

Asked if the county should make an effort to reimburse its own residents like the county regularly bails out the Westchester County Medical Center, Kaplowitiz said the situation was different, that the Medical Center was non-profit and had improved its management, and that using county funds to reimburse was just taking from taxpayers.   “It (the food spoilage claims) should come from the shareholders of Con Edison, a profit-making business, not the taxpayers of the county,” Kaplowitz said. Kaplowitz said Con Edison had failed to communicate, did not have enough repair crews (being that the company had to call in other companies for help), and did not provide adequate information on recovery progress as the power crisis unfolded last week.

The purpose of the Spano meeting with Con Edison  Ms. Greene said is to look to the future to improve Con Edison communications with the public and to explore infrastructure conditions and the status of “feeder cables” and how Con Edison is equipped to handle future heat and power demands as well as weather-related powerline damage on the scale of last week’s third storm that devastated central Westchester. Ms. Greene said the meeting would be closed to the press. She had no explanation as to why the meeting would be closed, and whether other county legislators and public representatives would be in attendance.

Greene repeated that County Executive Spano feels that Con Edison “did a good job in its response,” but communications with the public were a key issue the County Executive wants to examine. Greene said Spano wanted to explore what new technologies Con Edison can use so their customer service representatives would be better prepared to provide estimates on when customers without power could expect electricity to be restored. Greene also confirmed, (as county news releases had advised residents last week), that Con Edison does not have the kind of technology monitoring equipment that instantly shows on a monitored screen when power has been lost to an individual customer, a street, a section or a city. The only way Con Edison knows if power is lost is if a customer or police call them, she said.

Greene said Con Edison, in the third storm that took place July 18 in the early hours of July 19 when an alleged “microburst” hit the County Seat (White Plains), Con Edison response began based on police information and customer calls. She said Con Edison personnel were called into the County Emergency Center and routed crews to down wires, where in cases they “stood guard” until the appropriate crews were dispatched to neutralize the live wire. Greene said the county did not have detailed information on how and when Con Edison deployed its crews during the first day of recovery, July 19 and the next, July 20. Greene said the larger emergencies were taken care of first, again based on police and consumer calls.

However, as any person calling in last week knows, the Con Edison voice mail menu, 800-75CONED is tedious, lasts about five minutes, before you can give your information, and does not give you response to a live person and is exasperating when you have an emergency situation. When WPCNR pointed this out to Ms. Greene, she said that was one of the issues the County Executive was going to look at, in addition to the County Emergency Notification System, which Susan Tolchin, Chief Adviser to County Executive Spano criticised in a letter to the Journal News today.

The obscure Tolchin letter on the Journal News oped page today was the first official reprimand of Con Ed performance by the County Executive other than Mr. Spano’s request for Westchester residents receiving equal food spoilage claims payments with Queens residents which he lobbied for Monday. Mr. Spano still has not responded to WPCNR’s questions on whether he will attempt to find other ways to compensate Westchester residents’ spoilage claims due to storm damage,  (his Department of Communications said yesterday he would not). Con Edison, in an action first uncovered by WPCNR,  subtlely refused to pay food spoilage claims for wind and downed power lines damage, after leading residents complaining of storm damage to believe they would during Monday afternoon’s public hearing.

Tolchin wrote that the county chose on Thursday afternoon (40 hours after the storm July 18 had concluded)  “to implement CENS after a Thursday afternoon conference call with Consolidated Edison officials in which they told us that, beginning Thursday night, if the public called their customer service number, representatives would have the estimated restoration time for each address.” Tolchin’s letter responding to a complaint of Gabrel Farkas who complained that Con Ed could not tell him estimated time of restoration, said “there were others, who did not receive the information as Con Ed promised. There is no excuse for this failure, and points up serious problems with Con Ed’s communication to the public.” The letter states, “it will be one of the subjects the county executive will discuss when he meets with Con Ed officials to go over the outage.”

It will apparently be Mr. Spano’s first public discussion of performance issues with Con Edison because Mr. Spano according to a legislative aid did not attend Monday afternoon’s public hearing on the Con Edison performance held by County Legislator Tom Abinanti.

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WPCNR WEATHER SCOOP. By John F. Bailey. July 26, 2006: By WPCNR estimate, Con Edison’s decision not to reimburse Westchester citizens for storm damage related power outages last week is saving Con Edison $8,750,000, based on a minimum of $350 spoliage claim reimbursement and a reported 25,000 customers out. In White Plains, 7,000 customers who were outted by the alleged “microburst” mystery storm last week, are out $2,450,000 by Con Edison’s sticking to their Public Service Commission agreements to the letter.

Moments ago, the Department of Communications for Westchester County, asked if County Executive Andy Spano is considering ways for the county to reimburse its citizens, told WPCNR there are no plans to have the county reimburse residents.

The spokesperson said nothing in the way of county relief for the food spoilage damage alone is being considered. The spokesperson also said the County Executive had no statement on the Con Edison policy that was not spelled out at a county legislative hearing Monday afternoon.

Country Executive Spano asked as of last week for the disasters to be consider simultaneous for the county to get infrastructure repair aid, but this was before Con Edison took five days to restore Scarsdale and White Plains to full power, resulting in massive food spoilages at apartments and private homes.

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WPCNR WEATHER SCOOP. By John F. Bailey. July 26, 2006: Councilman Dennis Power newly minted appointee to Robert Greer’s Council seat became the first White Plains and Westchester County public official to announce his concern for Con Edison’s announcement yesterday that  the 25,000 plus White Plains and Westchester residents who lost power due to last week’s “Mystery Storm” would not receive food spoilage refunds — a fact that was exposed by WPCNR when verifying a WCBS 880 false news report.

 Power also told WPCNR the city needed to look at the timeliness and ways to inform its residents in an emergency, saying the city perhaps needed a 311 number for citizens to call. (Citizens and City Hall, as documented by WPCNR had no central source of information to get a handle on what was happening as the power was wiped out across the southend of the city, leaving 7,000 without Con Ed service. To date the Mayor, the County Executive, County Legislators have not responded to WPCNR inquiries as to whether they will defer to Con Edison’s announced refusal to offer food spoilage refunds for the storm damage that affected 25,000 plus Westchester residents, 7,000 in White Plains.

 Andrew Spano has not issued a statement to WPCNR on his reaction to Con Edison’s announcement yesterday, that the utility would not cover food spoilage for storm damage in the county. Neither has County Legislator Bill Ryan (of White Plains) who is on vacation, nor  County Legislator Tom Abinanti, whose aid has told WPCNR Mr. Abinanti would be in touch with WPCNR.

Mr. Abinanti conducted the County hearing on the power outages Monday afternoon, where Con Edison’s representative neglected to inform residents complaining about storm damage that their food spoilage claims would not be covered.

Mayor Joseph Delfino of White Plains has not issued a statement either, neither has Council President Rita Malmud. The Mayor complained that Con Edison was not responding with enough utility line crews last week, and his Commissioner of Public Works told WPCNR earlier this week, Con Edison supplied 2 to 3 utility units to White Plains Wednesday and Thursday after the storm, with 2 line crews the predominant Con Edison presence.

Power reached today by WPCNR, said that Con Edison agreeing to County Executive Spano’s request that Con Edison allow Westchester residents the same $350 in food spoilage refunds to be claimed without receipts, as they are allowing in Queens (on equipment related power losses) “was a good start, unfortunately it’s still tied into the heat wave thing and the grid, and that is the problem that Con Ed has said they would immediately has said it would reimburse with the $350 and the $7,000 for businesses, which is good, but most of the problems in White Plains is that it was storm related and wires and things coming down so most of that is after what they’re talking about.”

When WPCNR pointed out that Con Edison executive Mark Drexel (Acting Director of Emergency Management for Con Edison) did not make that difference clear at the public hearing Monday, even though listening to complaints about storm damage (and reporters covering that hearing have told WPCNR confirm this) Power agreed, saying “Yeah, it was a little cloudy. I’ve already started checking into that to verify the clarification. I know that public safety has been working very efficiently with emergency services, in terms of getting the numbers by municipality, but I am very much interested in checking out on this. I saw a glimmer of hope there but a lot of people were affected in a big way.”

“I don’t want to go out and talk about stuff because I was gathering facts. From Wednesday through Sunday I had been going around (White Plains). I just couldn’t believe the amount of devastation. The neighborhoods were racked, I just couldn’t believe it. It kind of puts things in perspective,” Power said.

New Councilman Questions City Ability to Communicate in Unfolding Emergency.

“I’m also very concerned or very interested to see, because I think our public safety and DPW did some phenomenal work. I’m going to be checking into how we as a city are able to respond and deal with phone calls in terms of our systems in being able to direct people. Whether there is a need for a 311 line. I think this  (storm) highlights again the need. On normal days, it can be difficult to determine where to turn to or which department to go to for information for things. Now in this kind of thing it just heightens that awareness that we need to be able to handle (emergencies) more efficiently. In terms of communication that’s where we need to look at better efficiencies.”

Last Week WPCNR asked the Mayor’s Office if they were planning a review of how emergency communications could be handled more efficiently in a city wide emergency. The Mayor’s Office has not responded.