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. From Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner. March 15, 2010: I received the following update from the police chief. I’m disappointed that progress has been so slow and will be asking Con Ed to assign more resources to Greenburgh. (6,500 are without power). We apologize for the inconveniences.

Please be advised that we are opening up the Theodore Young Community Center tonight as a shelter for those without power. The phone of the center (32 Manhattan Ave) is 989 3600.  

If you know of an elderly resident/disabled resident who you are worried about who you can’t contact and who may be out of power – please advise and we’ll check up on them. I am very sorry that so many Greenburgh residents are being inconvenienced during this storm and appreciate what you are experiencing.Please feel free to call me on my cell: 438 1343 (I don’t have power at home so my home phone isn’t working).

Here are the road closures of of 3:30 P.M. in the Town of Greenburgh:

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. From Lou Bruno, President, Bryant Gardens  March 15, 2010 (This is a letter sent by the leader of the Bryant Gardens cooperative on Bryant Avenue to Mayor Adam Bradley, it is one plight of just one of hundreds of apartment complexes around Westchester County that are without power.):

Adam

Thank you for taking quick action to restore power and services in White Plains after the storm.

I am writing to inform you of the outages at Bryant Gardens in the hope that together we can improve the priority of our Con Ed service ticket (WE10046590).

Roughly half of Bryant Gardens — Buildings 1 – 7, with 196 families, including all street and outdoor lights — has had no power since Saturday night.  The affected buildings are serviced by an oil-fired central boiler used for heat (a hot water system) and domestic hot water that can’t be run until power is restored.  Electricity is needed for the pumps in the boiler room (208, 3-phase) that distribute the hot water and pumps in the buildings that circulate the water.

Unlike families in one and two-family residences, that may have alternatives, ours have no safe way to heat their apartments or generate hot water for washing and bathing.

Many — about one-third — of our residents are senior citizens with limited means and greater needs for heat and hot water than others.

The buildings without power get it from a feeder entering the complex from Bryant Ave at the beginning of Bryant Crescent.  Two of our buildings are on Bryant Ave and have power, although one has no heat and hot water.  The other six buildings get power from a Bryant Ave feeder entering at the end of Bryant Crescent and have power.

Buildings 1-7 have no power because a large tree was uprooted by the storm, fell across Bryant Crescent, and severed the power lines on the other side of the roadway.  Save-A-Tree was engaged and cleared the roadway within a few hours after the tree fell.  A Con-Ed “safety representative” appeared on site this morning and has cordoned off the roadway until repair crews can arrive.

We hope you’ll be able to use this information to get Con Ed to assign a higher priority to the large number of Bryant Gardens residents without services, including 60-70 senior citizen families.

Thanks for your help!

—
Best regards,

Louis J. Bruno, President
Bryant Gardens Corporation

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WPCNR THE POWER SURVEY. March 15, 2010: As the “Storm with No Name” continues to make life miserable for Westchester County, the revelation last night by Con Edison that the out-of-state emergency repair crews they always rely on in the aftermath of devastating storm damage come “when they can” and when the out-of-state emergency crews can come is something that no one knew.

Here was a storm that the Weather Channel, the local Accuweather boys and weather alarmists were saying last Wednesday was going to have high winds and gale force potential, 50 miles per hour at least. 48 hours warning.

Con Edison had well-in-advance warning. The Storm with No Name came in Friday night grew in intensity all day Saturday, damage started piling up across the region by twilight Saturday night and we went from 11,000 customers out at 6 P.M. to 70,000 customers out in Westchester alone by Sunday morning, double the outages experienced four weeks ago in the blizzard.

Early Saturday night Con Edison decided to call in emergency crews from outlying states, which are arriving Monday, 48 hours later. Westchester is supposed to turn on by the end of the week.

However, the crews in the middle west coming in had clear weather the middle of last week. Con Edison told WPCNR late Sunday evening, the emergency crews “were reluctant” to commit their crews to Con Edison and leave their areas unprotected.

Well, the damage done by this storm which flirted with a Force 1 hurricane intensity at times (75 miles per hour sustained winds puts you in the “Big Storm League”) speaks volumes about how awesome in terms of what a Force 2 or Force 3 hurricane would do in the county and the devastation that under the present system, Con Edison and all the emergency crews in surrounding regions would simply not be able to correct for months.

With trees still lying across roads and only one Con Edison crew working White Plains according to the city, it is clear that the policians, the Public Service Commission, the Legislature have to address Con Edison and other power companies inability to handle major disasters efficiently.

Granted Con Edison did a solid job in the blizzard four weeks ago, but the blizzard only blew in the 30 to 35 mile an hour wind range.

It is time that Con Edison got some help. If Con Edison cannot call in Emergency Forces to tidy up fallen live wires in an efficient manner because they do not have relief crews, even when they have 48 hours advance notice, when can they? When will they ever?

What is needed is a force that either Con Edison maintains, or works with fire departments to train the local fire departments to remove the wires, or a division of the National Guard is trained to deploy into hard-hit devastated areas. It is clear that the parocial interests of crews from other states with obvious divided responsibilities cannot respond fast enough to handle emergencies everywhere where power outages are concerned. And this is not a knock on those great guys from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee who have helped us in the past. This is about the practicality.

What do Mr. and Mrs. White Plains think….and Mr. and Mrs. Westchester, all70,000 customers who are waiting for the sight of relief; the fire departments and Departments of Public Works waiting for a “Con Ed man?” 

Tell the hand-wringing legislators and bureaucrats who are responsible for what passes for “emergency preparedness” that it is time Westchester could handle a large outage a lot faster than they can do under the present system.

ONE crew helping White Plains the last 36 hours as was revealed in yesterday’s city hall meeting in White Plains means you have a system that can’t work when this area is hit with a really big storm.

Tell us what you think in the poll at the right.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. From Con Edison Media Relations. (EDITED) March 14, 2010:

Con Edison crews continue responding to outages caused by a powerful storm that knocked trees and limbs into power lines throughout New York City and Westchester County. Approximately 187,000 customers were affected by the storm, far exceeding the number of outages caused by Hurricane Gloria in 1985, when 110,515 customers lost power.

As of 6 p.m. Sunday evening, the company had restored power to approximately 67,000 customers. Approximately 120,000 customers remained without power: 79,000 in Westchester County, 24,000 in Staten Island, 8,800 in the Bronx, 6,000 in Queens, 2,000 in Brooklyn, and about 100 in Manhattan.

Around Westchester County, of the 79,000 customers reporting outages, the areas with the most customers reporting outages continue to be Yonkers, 11,903; New Rochelle, 8,494; Greenburgh, 8,429; White Plains, 7,388; Mount Vernon, 6,372; Scarsdale, 5,870; Harrison, 4,014,Mamaroneck/Larchmont, 2,566; and Eastchester, 3,763.

Con Edison expects restoration to last throughout the week. The company has been securing mutual aid from utilities in several states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Massachusetts.

Con Edison has approximately 210 restoration crews now in the field, in addition to other field support personnel clearing roads and trees. The number of restoration crews is expected to grow to 350 tomorrow and 425 on Wednesday as more out-of-state crews arrive.

Con Edison has additional customer service representatives, electrical and construction crews, along with tree-clearing crews working around the clock to respond to customers and power outages that may occur.

Customers are urged to call Con Edison immediately to report any outages at 1-800-75-CONED (1-800-752-6633). Customers can also report power interruptions or service problems at www.conEd.com and on their cell phones and PDAs. When reporting an outage, customers should have their Con Edison account number available, if possible, and report whether their neighbors also have lost power.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS by Peter Katz Special to WPCNR – March 14, 2010 UPDATED 11:15 P.M. E.D.T.- A Con Edison Emergency Planner was making no promises to White Plains officials on Sunday as to when power will be restored to all areas of the city which were knocked out during the weekend storm. He told a meeting at City Hall that took place at 3 P.M. that he’s doing his best to get the electric company to double the number of line crews assigned to repairing wires in White Plains — from one crew to two crews.

The Con Edison press office is checking to see as of 11 P.M. for WPCNR if another crew is to be assigned to White Plains. At 11 P.M., the Con Edison Storm Center reports 7,388 White Plains customers without power. According to Con Edison news released issued at 7 P.M. Con Edison has 210 repair crews working through the metropolitan area as of today; they expect that number to grow to 310 by Monday, and 425 by Wednesday.

The Con Edison spokesperson was asked by WPCNR why, in view that gale force winds were forecast as early as Thursday of last week (the storm with no name arrived Saturday), why hadn’t Con Ed called in emergency crews from other states earlier. The spokesperson said he’d try and get an answer.

City Power Conference, Sunday Afternoon. Left of picture, front to back: Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti, Commissioner of Parking, Al Moroni, Communications Director, Antoinette Biordi. Right side of table back to front: Commissioner of Building Damon Amadio, Chief of Staff, John Callahan; White Plains Mayor Adam Bradley (in black cap), and Commissioner of Public Safety, David Chong. Photo, Peter Katz.

Mayor Bradley and Public Works Commissioner Bud Nicoletti both stated that the city’s clean-up crews can’t remove fallen trees and reopen streets until Con Ed workers have at least cut off power to downed lines, even if they can’t immediately repair the broken wires. They noted that getting into and out of some neighborhoods has been like trying to get through a maze. While explaining that the Con Edison official with whom he’s been in frequent phone contact has been pleasant to deal with, Bradley said it’s not a substitute for getting crews into White Plains to hang wires and make any other necessary repairs.

Nicoletti was one of the commissioners who met in the Mayor’s office to assess the state of the storm clean-up and plan additional actions. In addition to uniformed fire and police personnel, commissioners David Chong of Public Safety, Al Moroni of Parking/Recreation, Damon Amadio of the Building Department, Chief of Staff John Callahan, and Public Information spokesperson Antoinette Biordi attended.

Chong reported that at least seven houses were substantially damaged by falling trees, and there were numerous fender benders and cars struck by falling branches. He said there were no significant fires, but fire units had been very busy dealing with sparking wires and pumping out basements which flooded when sump pumps failed due to power outages.

Police units were assigned to intersections where traffic signals were out. Chong pointed out that during the height of the storm, they couldn’t even put out portable stop signs because the wind would just blow them away. Mayor Bradley declared that the police and fire response was “fabulous.”

Amadio reported that his building inspectors will be taking a look at houses which were damaged, to help determine the extent of needed repairs. His department also will be trying to learn details about debris which was blown off the roof of the Ritz-Carlton high rise complex on Main Street.

It was believed that at least one retailer’s plate glass window at street level was smashed by what looked like rocks, similar to a type of roofing material. Commissioner Nicoletti noted that wind generally increases as altitude increases, which prompted Mayor Bradley to ask Amadio to start developing new ideas to decrease the risk of debris being blown off tall buildings, whether under construction or occupied.

Moroni reported that the storm did not cause significant damage to the city’s parking lots and structures. He said that some of his workers could be assigned to help the DPW clean-up crews, an offer which was accepted by Nicoletti.

Mayor Bradley said priorities include helping people who were affected by the storm, restoring full access to neighborhoods, ensuring that major roads can handle Monday’s morning rush hour, and surveying school buildings to determine whether they all have electric service.