THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. November 12, 2012:

 Con Edison almost made its self-imposed target for restoring all of its Westchester customers yesterday. As of Monday morning 155 customers were still unconnected, and 41 of them were in White Plains.

Alan Drury, spokesperson for Con Edison, responded to Town Supervisor of Greenburgh, Paul Feiner’s suggestions on Con Edision restoration efforts,(See “Feiner Lights Into Con Ed,”  noting,

– We have had crews working around the clock to restore power to customers affected by Hurricane Sandy, the largest storm in company history, and this week’s Nor’easter.

– We are using retirees to help us with the restoration.

– We are holding a daily conference call with municipal and state officials to update them on progress.

– Customers who are on what we call Life Sustaining Equipment can register with us and we will call them to notify them of outages, voltage reductions and other events. We will also have a rep call them to check on them and see whether they need us to call 911 for them.

– We have restored service to 1 million customers since Hurricane Sandy struck. The previous most destructive storm in Con Edison history was Hurricane Irene, which knocked about 204,000 customers out of service. We have restored five times that many customers since Hurricane Sandy struck.

The remaining are scheduled to be connected today. The numbers:

WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey UPDATED November 10, 2012 9:30 A.M. E.S.T.:

President Obama will visit the New York metro area on Thursday, Nov. 15.

The President is coming  to view storm damage and meet with officials and first responders.

WPCNR was first to report on the likelihood of such a trip, which would be the President’s second to assess storm damage in the northeast. The President had previously visited New Jersey. WPCNR reported on Thursday that our source had learned that the White House was considering setting up a Presidential trip for Wednesday, Nov. 14.

In Westchester County this morning,Con Edison is reporting 7,577 residents without power in the fifteenth day since Hurricane Sandy departed. White Plains still has 675 customers without electricity. New York State Electric & Gas website reports only 3 Customers without power left in Westchester County.

Paul Feiner, Town of Greenburgh Supervisior in a statement to his constituents Friday night said:

“The end of the nightmare is near. 728 Con Ed customers in Greenburgh are currently out of power –down from 1,505 earlier today (Friday). Con Ed estimates that the restoration date for the town is tomorrow (Saturday) evening before midnight.”

Meanwhile,Over at FEMA

The FEMA Hurricane Recovery Center is open 7 days a week on the third floor of the Westchester County Center in The Little Theater and is open today Saturday and Sunday from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. to register for recovery assistance. As of noon Friday 54 persons had visited the center according to Gary Weidner,FEMA Media Relations. Weidner said there were about ten FEMA specialists there to advise residents, help them apply for assistance and explain what financial aid is available. He observed and we saw there was no waiting (yesterday) and an organized atmosphere was in effect.

Weidner said those applying for assistance needed to know that FEMA financial assistance is a supplement to residents’ insurance, and does not reimburse insurance deductibles. He said that the definition of FEMA aid is to provide financial aid and resources to bring damaged residences back to the point they were safe and secure.

State officials housing decisions awaited.

Weidner, asked if FEMA would provide new places of residences in the metropolitan area for displaced persons whose homes were destroyed told WPCNR that was not clear because state authorities had not made decisions yet on the details on housing.

Weidner said FEMA does not dictate to the state or local authorities on where and how displaced persons could be temporarily housed–FEMA policy is to work with the state on housing the displaced but logistics are up to the state.

As of yesterday at midday, and based on WCBS Television coverage of the terrible devastation in Long Beach, that need for housing accommodations for the displaced needs to be addressed by Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and state officials immediately.

He said residents at this point only had until November 17 (one week from today) to apply for temporary housing from FEMA in hotels or other arrangements. This would imply that residents staying in damaged homes at the present time would be stuck in them if the government did not extend the November 17 deadline.

The Con Edison outage: