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. January 20, 2006: Joe Petta of Consolidated Edison Communications reported this afternoon to WPCNR that of the 1,000 households left powerless in Wednesday’s windstorm, 900 have been restored as of 4:30 P.M. Petta said Con Ed is on target to have the 100 customers still without power to be restored late this evening or by tomorrow morning.

Mr. Petta also stated that countywide, 4,300 customers remained powerless at this hour (4:30 P.M.). 

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. January 20, 2006: A resident of Battle Hill Houses, the senior complex at 13-15 Harmon Avenue in Battle Hill reports Con Edison restored power to the building as of 6:30 P.M. Friday evening. Heat, lights, all are now working that resident says. The apartment complex had been without power from about 8 AM Wednesday morning until 6:30 Thursday evening, powered first by the White Plains Fired Department special services truck, then by a rented generator provided by the landlord.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. January 19,2006 UPDATED January 20, 2006, 8:50 A.M. E.S.T.: The Con Edison Communications Center reported to WPCNR Thursday evening at 11:15 P.M. that the company has only 9,000 households to restore in Westchester County down from 15,000 as of 1 P.M this afternoon. No figure was available for White Plains customers.

The spokesperson told WPCNR they have restored power to 31,000 customers since the “Big Blow” of Wednesday morning swhooshed through Westchester County at just below Category 1 Hurricane force, with windgusts up to the 70 mile per hour mark.

Earlier today, Joe Petta, a spokesperson for Con Edison confirmed  that Con Ed has brought in a large number of crews from upstate and surrounding areas because of the serious nature of the storm damage, which Petta described to WPCNR as “unprecedented.”

Asked whether this indicated that Con Edison was inadequately staffed to handle the such widespread damage, Petta said, “We believe we are adequately staffed. This storm was unprecedented.” He said the company called in Con Edison crews from “other service areas” and other companies, just as occurred in emergencies elsewhere in the country. Asked if Con Ed also pulled in out of area crews to handle last Saturday evening’s wind and rain damage, Petta said “Yes,” and he confirmed to WPCNR that Con Ed asked for these crews to come back for Wednesday’s massive repairs.

Meanwhile, as of 5 P.M. Thursday afternoon the Battle Hill Houses apartments filled with senior citizens was being powered by a rented generator brought in by the landlord and efforts were being made to get the heat going in the building. That power is now reported back on as of 6:30 P.M. according to a resident.

 Paul Wood of the Mayor’s Office said the building was privately owned, and that it was the landlord responsibility to notify Con Edison there were persons using health-related devices that ran on electricity living in the building. Mr. Petta told WPCNR that Con Edison has lists of buildings which need to be restored first in outages for specifically that reason: persons living there need electricity for life support apparatus. The rest of Battle Hill as of 5 P.M. appeared to this reporter to have electricity restored.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. January 19, 2006: A Con Edison spokesperson reported to WPCNR moments ago that the number of  households without power in Westchester County prior to 1 P.M. was 15,000. He did not have a number for the homes powerless in White Plains because Con Ed does not monitor the numbers on individual communities with “that kind of specificity.”  He reported that kind of information is available to district maintenance offices supervising the repairs. A new number of households restored and without power is due shortly.

Joe Petta of the Con Ed Communications Office in New York told WPCNR all repairs throughout Westchester County were expected to be completed by Friday evening with the possibility it might take until Saturday morning.

Live Wire Clearance

In regard to the task of defusing live wires down in White Plains, Petta explained that repair areas are prioritized by the number of households affected when any line goes down. Con Edison learns of outages two ways: by telephone calls from consumers and from their own systems monitoring equipment.

The lines powering the most homes are repaired first, countywide he said.

Petta said Con Edison prioritizes their repair by examining their monitoring system and can tell by looking at “screens” how many homes are affected by any one line that shows up on their system as being out of service. Line A, for example, he said might affect 10,000, another line only 10. The lines are repaired in descending order of households served.

Checking the Scene

Petta said the system cannot tell Con Ed what is causing the line outage. He said that can only be determined by the crew when they go out to check the site where the out-of-service wire is.

In the case of live wires, Petta said that a Con Ed repairperson cuts the wire when they arrive at the scene,  but do not necessarily repair it at the same time. 

The way the wire is shut down depends on the specific situation. The Con Ed crew could either throw a switch on a transformer, cut the wire off at the pole, throw a switch along the line, depending on where its feed is coming from. Petta cautioned though that wires are shut down on a priority basis and repaired on a priortiy basis depending on the number of households and customers served, which explains why some wires are left down and live longer than others.

“The Number 1 Priority of Restoring power,” Petta told WPCNR, “is we start reparing lines that restore the most customers wehen they are repaired.”

Key Installations.

Petta said Con Edison maintains of procedure where they “I.D.” customers such as hospitals and nursing homes  which have life-sustaining equipment if they register with Con Edison. Those customers are brought back on line as a major priority. WPCNR notes that most of the facilities have generators that can pick up the power until Con Edison brings them back. It could not be determined whether the Battle Hill Houses on Harmon Avenue without power Wednesday and Thursday evening had registered with Con Edison as having life-sustaining equipment in the building.

Con Ed Consulting Available to Cities

Asked how Con Edison worked with individual Departments of Public Works, and specifically White Plains in managing through major power crises, Petta said “Con Ed works  in close contact with city managers and town managers.”

He said cities can request a Con Edison supervisor to work with them during times of crisis in their command center. “We will supply that.”

Petta did not know whether the City of White Plains had a such a Con Edison logistics specialist working with the Department of Public Works  and the White Plains Police Thursday evening. WPCNR has asked the city if the Department of Public Works was working directly with a coordinator from Con Edison on this situation.

No Statement from City.

At noon, WPCNR requested a statement from the Mayor’s Office on the State of the City 28 hours into recovering from the Wednesday windstorm. as of 2 PM, no statement has been issued from the Mayor’s Office, but the police have issued a new traffic report.

Petta said the amount of damage was extensive for a wind storm, causing conditions rarely seen except when snow and ice were involved.

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WPCNR THE HOMELESS NEWS. By John F. Bailey. January 19, 2006: Approximately 40 homeless persons were transferred from the city pickup point at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and Quarropas Streets Wednesday evening. Three vans arrived at 10:33 P.M. in 35 degree temperatures with homeless waiting about 45 minutes. The first 30 persons were loaded by 10:40 P.M. and arrived at 85 Court Street at 10:50. One of the vans returned to the pickup point to pick up stragglers at 10:50, and they were driven to 85 Court by 11:00 P.M. Though transfer is more efficient by WPCNR observation, the vans have been late every night the process has been in effect, nine straight days.

Approximately 25 were waiting at the usual place at 9:50 P.M. E.S.T. Photo, WPCNR News

For the second night in a row, passengers were allowed to disembark the vehicles at the compound gate and walk in, without vans backing down the loading dock alley. No Westchester County Police were on the scene. White Plains Police routinely trolled by on regular patrol up Quarropas and down Court Street around 10 P.M. and 10:15 P.M.

Knowledgeable sources at the Department of Social Services have told WPCNR the ground floor where the homeless stay is the DSS conference room, wood-paneled, carpeted, and is a large room. Bathrooms contain approximately 4 toilets for the 40 or so population. No medical personnel staff the overnight Drop-In Shelter, but if any homeless person suffers a medical problem, they will be taken to the White Plains Hospital Emergency Room. Sources described the nightly guests of the county as sad, forlorn persons, well-behaved, and they appeared to be businesslike and cooperative as they left vans to walk into their overnight home last night.

In contrast, the Westchester County Emergency Shelter set up Wednesday afternoon on the ground floor of the Westchester County Center, received no overnight guests. A decision will be made this morning by the County as to whether the county reopens the temporary County Center Shelter for storm victims whose electricity is out because of the storm.