WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. January 21, 2006 UPDATED 1:00 P.M. E.S.T. January 21, 2006: As of 11:30 this morning, White Plains Police report there are no roads closed in White Plains due to Wednesday “Tropical Storm,” as it was described by Westchester County Executive Andy Spano.
The Con Edison Media Relations Office in New York reported to WPCNR that as of 12:30 Saturday morning, 52 White Plains households are still without power. Throughout Westchester County, there are 1,500 households without power.
As of 5 P.M. Friday afternoon, Con Edison advised WPCNR there were 100 homes still without power in the city, and retored power to approximately half of them by this hour.
In a news conference held by the Westchester County Executive Friday on two hours notice to media, which was not summarized by a news release afterwards (which is standard procedure for the County Executive’s numerous pronunciations to the county) County Executive Spano expressed the thought that persons being without power for two to three days is unacceptable.
He is reported as saying Con Edison and New York State Electric & Gas should have done more and should have had more repair crews.
However, had the County Executive, his emergency staff and his communications office contacted the Con Edison Media Relations office, or monitored WPCNR, his staff would have known Con Edison has imported crews from upstate and surrounding areas to supplement their repair force, in a standard mutual aid practice, such was the massive damage.
His staff would have known that for the second time in a week, the Con Edison repair “fleet” was not an adequate force to handle a massive simultaneous widespread downing of powerlines and trees. Con Edison confirmed to WPCNR that they imported crews to handle damage from last Saturday evening’s wind-rain-snow storm, too, and had to bring them back for the Wednesday devastation of Mr. Spano’s county.
Adequate, Con Ed Maintains.
Con Edison assured WPCNR that their number of repair crews were “adequate,” but followed standard practice by supplementing their in-action crews with help from outside the Westchester area due to the “unprecedented” breadth of damage across three counties.
Mr. Spano, and by inference, his entire emergency staff, according to news reports demonstrated obvious ignorance of how Con Edison operates in massive emergencies.
Had he and his staff phoned a press office, or read the CitizeNetReporter as repairs were unfolding he would know that Con Edison prioritizes line repair based on numbers of customers serviced by each line down. Based on the County Executive’s reported remarks, he did not appear to know that this was standard Con Edison procedure.
Mayor’s Office Relies on Department of Public Safety, Public Works
The Mayor’s Office of White Plains authorized the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Public Works to issue road closings, dangerous areas of outages, and the status of repairs as the storm unfolded to WPCNR. The Mayor’s Office appeared to be just as much in the dark as their County Executive on the status of the unfolding recovery effort, having only sketchy information Thursday and Friday on where White Plains neighborhoods were out of electricity.
The Mayor’s Office has yet to make an official statement, hold a news conference, or give an official status report on the city.
City information was distributed to WPCNR by The White Plains Department of Public Safety and the Department of Public Works. Those two departments have reported on traffic and street closing conditions to WPCNR in a timely and responsive manner as best they have been able to, to keep residents abreast of the situation.
