What Has Con Ed Done to Improve Service in Scarsdale Since Hurricane Sandy

After the power outage on Tuesday night in Greenacres, several readers wrote in to ask what Con Edison has done since Hurricane Sandy to improve service and decrease outages in our area.

Scarsdale10583 asked Assistant Village Manager John Goodwin to outline what has been done and how you can get additional information. Here is his reponse:

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Village Board of Trustees wrote a letter to Con Edison's, dated December 12, 2012 outlining their concerns with Con Ed's power restoration operation. In response to this letter, the Village Board met with Con Ed on January 23, 2013. At the meeting the logistical, staffing, and communication problems that were apparent in Con Ed's emergency management response were discussed as well as Con Ed's capital expenditures and maintenance for the Scarsdale electrical grid.

At the meeting, Con Ed committed to work with the Village to "storm harden" the Scarsdale grid, especially in areas where there are recurring outages. In regard to improvements in general, Con Ed stated that they continually look at services and what causes outages and that if an outage is caused by equipment failure, improvements are sought. They also stated that no capital improvement can prevent a tree from taking down a wire or pole.

Since Hurricane Sandy, Con Edison has been active with their tree trimming program and making improvements on their overhead system. The improvements to the overhead system include installing new poles and new span wires which involve adding "smart switches" to the system that will minimize customer outages. This work was performed at various locations throughout the Village including Mamaroneck Road, Weaver Street, Drake Road, Post Road and Boulevard. Con Ed has also provided the Village with their feeder/grid map which will help identify system outages and held meetings with staff to perform "blue sky" desktop review of operational and communication issues. Post Sandy, Village staff has meet with Con Ed both individually and as part of a County wide effort sharing concerns and receiving important updates on ways to better manage these type of storm conditions. More detail of the work that Con Ed has been performing in Westchester County including Scarsdale can be found at the following link: http://www.coned.com/newsroom/news/pr20130614.asp.

It should be noted that Con Edison is regulated by the New York State Public Service Commission, not local governments within their service area. As such, Scarsdale's ability to influence Con Edison's operations is limited to filing complaints with the Public Service Commission, contacting State elected representatives or meeting directly with Con Edison officials. With that said, the Village has made every effort to do what it can to work with Con Edison to help improve the services they provide to Village residents.