THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR | 2,905,611 VISITORS VISIT 8,324,077 TIMES 3 TIMES EVERY DAY IN ONE YEAR. HIGHEST ACTIVITY IN WPCNR HISTORY.White PlainsCitizeNetReporter lifted its worldwide visits from unique visitors to wpcnr.com to 8,324,077,a 1,306,419 increase in visits in one year from 7,017,658 visits to the site last year which covers White Plains and Westchester County. The 8,324,077 visits were made by 2,005,611 unique visitors who visited wpcnr an average of 3 visits a day. ON JULY 20- -2026 visitors have accessed wpcnr and made 3,072 visits an average of 1.6 visits. In the last week 33,495 individual vistors made 54,458 visits, averaging 1.6 visits. In the last month, 152,940 visitors recorded 229,338 visits (1.5 visits)

New York State Power & Gas Misses Its Own Restoration Deadline–Moved to Tuesday. County Executive “Disgusted”

Posted on March 5, 2018 by John Bailey

WPCNR THE POWER STORY. Statement from County Executive George Latimer March 5, 2018:

“Days after Winter Storm Riley thousands of Westchester residents are still sleeping in cold homes with no lights and downed power lines right outside their doors. I find this disgusting.

I am outraged at both Con Edison and NYSEG’s slow and inadequate response.

On Sunday, I expressed doubt that NYSEG would be able to meet their timeline of restoring power by Monday night – unfortunately I was correct.

Today, NYSEG pushed back their timetable to 11:45 p.m. Tuesday. The people of Westchester, who pay both Con Edison and NYSEG for their services, deserve better. I’m calling on both companies to bring in more crews, and have their workers work around the clock to restore power to the people of Westchester.

My team has also reached out to the Chair of the Public Service Commission, John Rhodes, to again ask for an investigation of both Con Edison and NYSEG’s response to the storm.

Additionally, my team is already taking steps to prepare for the additional storm that is set to hit Westchester Wednesday evening.

To County residents, if you do have power I am asking you to please offer your home, a hot meal or a shower to family, friends and neighbors. To those County resident without power, please keep your chin up – I, along with my team, are working day and night to advocate for you.”

County Executive Latimer: Utilities Unprepared

Posted on March 5, 2018 by John Bailey

WPCNR THE POWER STORY.From County Executive George Latimer on Facebook. March 5, 2018:

Day Four of no power: tempers are high. Understandable. I went seven days during Sandy without power and it was a real problem.

But let’s get real with comments.

No single ‘neighborhood’ or town has been forgotten. First off, I’ve personally travelled through nearly every community over the weekend and saw for myself devastation.

Unfortunately when you’re out of power, you don’t particularly know or care about someplace 29 miles away that is also without power. This storm was serious and it affected people everywhere – Somers, Pelham, Peekskill, Yonkers, Armonk, Rye, literally everywhere.

It is false to assert your neighborhood has been forgotten because you havent seen trucks in your neighborhood.

The utilities were unprepared. They did not have enough trucks in most neighborhoods. They needed to call on mutual aid from distant states sooner – only last night did they arrive to put more professionals on the streets.

Anger directed at your Mayor, Council, Supervisor et. Is misplaced. They cannot direct utility resources.

Your anger is valid but it must be directed to the leadership of the utilities who did not plan for this disaster. I know as fact every official has been on numerous calls with the utilities literally screaming at them for attention for their towns.

The daytime warming centers are provided for a respite. Use them. Until the crews can get to you its the most proximate thing your local govt can do to give you a break.

After the crisis is over there’ll be much to hold accountable. For now, the British have it right ” Keep Calm and Carry On”. We will all direct our anger where it should be directed.

March 8 midnight total Power Restoration Predicted: Con ED. Pace of Con Ed Restoration Slows since 2 A.M. 43,385 in Weschester County without service as of 11 A.M.

Posted on March 5, 2018 by John Bailey

WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey. March 5, 2018 UPDATED 12:30 PM E.S.T.:UPDATED 1:30 PM EST.

Con Edison has moved back their estimate for complete restoration of power in Westchester County ( as of 11:30 A.M). to Thursday, by midnight according to their Storm Center “realtime” Map of outages.

Con Ed and New York State Electric and Gas are sticking to their promises of completing restoration by late today for NYSEG and 90% by Con Ed’s “powerless” by 11 PM tomorrow night, according to today’s Storm Update from Westchester County.

In a briefing in a Westchester County news conference Monday morning, Joan McDonald the County Director of Operations, said NYSEG was still maintaining it would complete its restoration of the now 19,802 NYSEG Customers in the northeast part of the county still without power by 11:45 PM today.(Editor’s Note: This deadline was missed, and NYSEG now promises it will have all their Customers restored by 11 PM Tuesday evening.)

She said Con Ed was still promising they would have power restored to 90% of the 41,261 (her number given in the briefing) without power by 11 PM tomorrow Tuesday, March 6.

You can see Ms. McDonald’s briefing on the County Facebook page, by going to westchestergov.com and clicking on the Facebook icon, and in the left hand column, go to Videos. Ms. McDonald’s video will come up, or paste this link into your browser:

https://www.facebook.com/westchestergov/videos/10156035280602092/

The Con Ed Pace of restoring power slowed overnight repowering approximately 1,000 Customers in the last 9 hours to bring down the number of Customers (a “customer” is counted as one meter) without power in Westchester County to 43,385 caused by 3,905 outages.

A phalanx of an estimated 100 repair crews from a number of states (Bob McGee of Con Edison said they were from Canada, Wisconsin and Texas) to help Con Ed with the restoration was assembling this morning at Rye.

This, despite the fact that the Public Service Commission Chairman John Rhodes at the news conference held late Sunday afternoon said “we are on our own,” unaware that power crews were unroute from Texas, Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan.

With the new crews supplementing the Con Edison force, the 43,385 “powerless” figure may begin to decline significantly by tomorrow.

The number of Westchester residents without power is up since 2 this morning when 41,654 had been reported on the Storm Center map as without power. Con Ed media spokesperson said the number of Customers without power out can go up and down because of switch off activity.

On Sunday, County Executive George Latimer in a news conference criticized Con Edison for not turning off power quickly when cities and towns had DPW crews ready to go and therefore they could not attack the tree and debris damage because of live power wires in the fallen trees. Mr. Latimer and the officials at the news conference said Con Ed came in quickly to make repairs once the debris were cleared to make the fixes necessary.

Today, WPCNR learned of an isolated experience in White Plains where White Plains DPW arrived with five trucks to clear a tree that was tangled in wires. The WP crew cleared the tree by 5 PM Sunday afternoon. As of 8 A.M. Monday morning no Con Ed repair crew had shown up to restore power to the block. This may be an isolated incident.

If persons have experienced similar experiences in Con Ed repair crews appearing on the scene after trees are cleared, please advise to [email protected]

The manager of Stop & Shop in White Plains said the store expected to have enough food to handle the rush after power is restored to replenish spoiled food.

The manager said after about 2 hours of losing power, the food begins to spoil, and should not be consumed.

The status numbers WPCNR totaled from areas in Westchester County with the highest number outages published this morning at 1:30 A.M. have not changed too much.

Ms. McDonald said the county is also monitoring price gouging that has been reported as a result of the storm. She said that Con Edison has classified this storm as the fifth worst storm they have ever handled. She said she did not have the numbers from Con Edison on how many persons total are affected. She said the National Guard role was as the communities see fit, such as debris removal.

Board of Legislators: Con Ed must improve response time

Posted on March 5, 2018 by John Bailey

WPCNR THE POWER STORY. From the Westchester County Board of Legislators. 10 AM, March 5, 2018:

“We know utilities have faced a daunting task in responding to the increasing number of severe weather emergencies, but Con Ed and NYSEG should be in a much better position to deal with these situations proactively,” said White Plains resident, Ben Boykin, Chair of the Westchester County Board of Legislators. “Con Ed and NYSEG must be ready to reach out immediately to communities and residents, to provide ongoing communications regarding staffing and remediation efforts and to have crews available to begin work rapidly.”

The scope of damage from Friday’s storm is extensive with flooding, fallen trees, downed power lines and property damage across the County, from North to South, from East to West.

The Board of Legislators would like to express its gratitude to first responders and crews from various municipalities and departments who worked throughout the weekend responding to emergencies, opening roads and clearing hazards.

However, as a new work week dawns, thousands of county residents are still without power, many roads remain closed and a new storm could affect the area this Wednesday.

The Chair and the Legislators spent the weekend in conversation with federal, state, county, and local officials and with Con Ed, to help flag the numerous critical facilities, intersections and residences that require attention.

“Con Ed says it will have a complement of around 300 crews fully engaged in the restoration process as the week begins,” Chairman Boykin said. “The Board also will be looking into ways that we can work with utilities to ensure that they’re better prepared for storms in the future, including working with utilities and federal, state, county and local officials to explore ways to speed up the process of calling in help from across the country.”