Westchester County residents without power are likely looking at another week-and-a-half in the dark.
On a press conference call this evening, Con Edison Senior Vice President of Electric Operations John Miksad said the "thousands" of restoration jobs throughout the county will likely not be complete until the end of next weekend, and even then, "There will be some stragglers that will go beyond that."
He reiterated, "We are allocating resources proportional to the damage and customer outages so we can bring it in a fair and efficient way."
Unlike Manhattan where multiple repairs can be made from a single location, the county has "thousands of jobs" that are "dispersed."
"It's thousands of jobs versus one localized area," Miksad explained. "That really is the main difference for restoration time."
Of the approximately 900,000 total Con Edison customers impacted by Hurricane Sandy this week, approximately 630,000 are still without power, he said.
In Westchester County, that number has dropped to approximately 151,096, according to the company's website.
"We are still assessing the damage in some of the hard to reach places," Miksad stated. "We have many customers whose basements are entirely flooded—including their electric equipment. We are isolating those customers from the grid until they repair their damaged equipment."
The repairs following the storm will likely end up costing "in the hundreds of millions of dollars," according to Miksad, though, the federal government may provide reimbursements.
In response to a reporter's inquiry about restoring power quickly to gas stations, Miksad replied the priorities still remain with the hospitals, nursing homes, water stations, etc. that are affected.
"We have a number of critical facilities," he said.
Given the criticism Con Edison has received about its response following Sandy so far, Miksad said, "We have been communicating very openly and candidly about the extent of the damage and the extent of the restoration efforts."
He continued, "I know people have to make plans—we don't want to blow smoke on this. We want to make sure people can plan their lives accordingly."
What this screams to me is that whatever system they have is hopelessly dysfunctional. And YES - we still have to bury the lines.
The estimated cost for this ONE STORM are amounting to roughly $50 billion in damage. That's close to 19,000 miles of wire burying using numbers of $500/foot. It would have an additional benefit of putting thousands of people to work who desperately need jobs. It would be a shot of adrenalin to our limping economy. That money would be returned to the community in the form of taxes and the purchase of goods and services. Businesses would flock to our area because it was functional and reliable - adding more jobs. Thriving communities don't just happen. It takes a deliberate effort on the part of the public sector.
$1,177,633 and well worth it! All of Con Ed's restoration costs will be paid with our taxpayer dollars thru FEMA. All the talk of "holding Con Ed's feet to the fire" is just that, namely talk. Here in Westchester, one of the highest taxed counties in the country, people are living without power or hope for restored power for another week or so. Words can not describe our frustration at Con Ed and all of our elected officials. To describe customers who are service by overhead wires as "stragglers" is just plain wrong! Perhaps a class action lawsuit vs. Con Ed might just wake them up...
As a final note, nobody is saying that "thinking would run that storm out to sea," or any of your other straw men you rolled out there. And you probably know that too, given the level of snark you're throwing out. The point is, ConEd had a dry run last year with a storm that nobody saw coming. This time it was different, because we all had the heads up. And nobody is saying that they would've stopped the flooding or the initial onslaught of the storm, and if they are, well, then they're just as deluded as you. What could have--and should have--been controlled, is the type of response made in the immediate aftermath. Let's be honest here. One crew for the entire town of Scarsdale, or two crews for all of Greenburgh, is just pathetic. And if you can't see that, then you're willfully looking the other way.
It is reported that Con Ed recorded a profit of just under one billion dollars in 2011. Is it unreasonable to expect that a significant portion of these profits be applied to the updating and the modernization of infrastructure? The public utility is a health and public safety matter. Unfortunately, Con Ed is essentially a monopoly in Westchester County thus taking the consumer for granted. Yes, I understand that Con Ed has a responsibility to their shareholders however they must understand that they have a responsibility to the public and the consumers that they are suppose to serve. At the very least Con Ed must undertake a serious effort to improve their infrastructure and their services. Jeff Meyer Tuckahoe, NY