Con Ed Representatives Meet with Scarsdale's Leaders

I don't know about you, but after eleven days without power during Hurricane Sandy, I thought someone would answer for Con Edison's failure – or at least force them to provide a disaster plan for the next storm. That's why I was pleased when I learned  that the Scarsdale Board of Trustees had sent a strongly worded letter to the utility requesting a meeting to address the Village's concerns -- and marked my calendar to attend the powwow on January 23rd.

To their credit, Con Edison did respond to the letter and sent five representatives to a meeting at Scarsdale Village Hall on 1-23 to answer questions about their performance during the storm and discuss the future. Coincidentally, the meeting was held just one day after the Scarsdale Board of Trustees passed new code to ease the way for the installation of permanent standby generators. And after attending the meeting with Con Edison, I am convinced that we all need to install one.

Tony Suozzo, Con Ed's General Manager of Electric Operations explained that the magnitude of Hurricane Sandy was unprecedented, with 334,0000 Westchester customers out of a total of 347,0000 out of service. Hurricane Irene, the second worst storm to date, put 105,000 customers out, so Sandy affected triple the number of users. Since the storm spanned a 1,000-mile radius, other utility companies who usually share resources, were not willing to release their teams, leaving Con Ed to manage the restoration with limited crews. Customarily Con Edison of Westchester shares crews with New York City and the boroughs, but due to the damage there, Con Edison crews in the city were in demand.

To get an idea about what it takes to service Westchester, Con Edison said that they have 48 overhead construction crews in Westchester to serve 39 municipalities. They also have a few private crews. However, they are heavily reliant on other utilities during crises. For instance, during Hurricane Irene they used 600 crews to repair the lines.

Turning to the specific questions posed in the letter from the Scarsdale Board of Trustees, Jon Mark asked Con Edison if they would be willing to share the map of the Scarsdale power grid to allow the Village Department of Public Works to make an assessment even before Con Edison arrives. Con Edison said that they are working on creating maps of feeders and branch lines that they can distribute to municipalities and promised to provide the map to the Village within a month.

Next was staffing. During Sandy, Scarsdale was assigned only one crew to de-energize power lines so that restoration work could be done. Trustee Mark asked if local electricians could be trained to de-energize lines and Con Edison said that they "needed to follow through on this." They offered no timeline on the process.

On timing, Mayor Flisser asked if it was standard for Con Edison not to send help after the first four days of the storm, as has been her experience since she began serving on the board. In response, the Con Edison team looked surprised, and said, "it is not our goal." They told the group that they assess where they can bring back the largest numbers of customers first and also respond to hospitals and nursing homes before working in areas with single-family homes.

Trustees also complained that there was no coordination between the Con Edison liaison and the Village staff to prioritize road clearing and restoration work. In fact, according to Deputy Village Manager Steve Pappalardo, during Hurricane Sandy the liaison did not know what was going on or what the work schedule was for the day. The Con Ed team told Village Managers that they should be able to dictate where the crews go in Scarsdale and promised to introduce a new team of muni managers who could work with the Village.

The conversation turned to communications, and Trustees discussed the inadequacies of the Con Edison customer service website which was often inaccurate and provided everyone with the same restoration date. This left the Mayor and the staff at Village Hall to answer for Con Edison and they manned thousands of calls from cold customers.

The Con Edison team admitted that their customer service system and website was inadequate and needs to be revamped. They said, "they are focused on improving it."

What can be done:

According to Con Edison, the only way to fix the problem is to put the wires underground or cut the trees so that they don't bring down the wires. They are now studying burying the lines but claim that the cost would be $7 to $9 million a mile, a great deal more than the $1 million a mile figure that was originally quoted.

Since the storm, Con Edison has kept some of the extra crews in Westchester to fix low wires, repair poles and trim or take down trees. They say that this work is now 80% complete. Though they used to cut back trees six feet away from the wires, they are now using 10-15 foot clearances.

The meeting ended with promises of:

• A visit from the new muni liaison team
• A long-range plan on burying wires underground
• Work on Con Edison's communications system
• A future meeting to discuss action plans

It was starting point, but there was no assurance that Con Ed is any better prepared how then they were in November.

My recommendation? If you have the funds and can get Con Edison to come to your house to install a gas line, buy your own generator. It will surely be put to good use!