Con Edison 'needed to do a better job' after outages, president says

RYE – Dozens of elected officials and residents gathered at a rally in March to rage against electric companies’ response to dual nor’easters that left thousands in the dark for days.

On Tuesday, some of those same officials sat down with Consolidated Edison representatives at the company’s offices on Theodore Fremd Avenue, receiving updates on what the utility has done to do better as storm season approaches.

Much of the criticism during days-long outages in March was slow response times but also a lack of clear information from the company about expectations – and NYSEG, which provides service in the north part of the county.

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“We needed to do a better job in communicating with our customers in the March storm and we’ve taken that on as a real challenge and made real progress,” company President Tim Cawley told reporters at a news conference following the meeting.

New moves to fight old problem

Cawley said customers can enroll in texting, to receive pre-storm briefings and information about restoration. Customers can also notify the company of outages via text.

It'll also aim to have more workers at the ready in advance, Cawley said.

“We think having people on the ground a little more conservatively is what our customers want and what we want to deliver," he said.

Several of the company’s new initiatives came from a consortium calling itself United Westchester, steered by state Assemblyman David Buchwald that issued a May report offering 11 recommendations to improve storm responses. Eight of those have been followed so far, Buchwald said.

Here’s what the company says it’s doing:

• It will spend $100 million to upgrade overhead systems in Westchester. The company spends more than $3 billion across the total system including electric, gas and steam, Cawley said.
• A pilot program in Cortlandt has seen the company use an arborist to view the health of trees, then work with residents and officials to remove those prone to come down during storms. Three hundred trees have been removed in the program, which can be taken on in other communities if it’s deemed successful, he said.
• It will enlist mutual aid crews from the West Coast after big storms. The March nor’easters meant a reliance on crews from elsewhere, but competition for outside workers was fierce. Cawley said the company will bring in crews from the West Coast, with the assumption there is less competition for those workers during a storm here.
• The company is expanding its line constructor staff from 225 to 600. It takes workers about four years of training and apprenticeship to reach full capacity, Cawley said. In an event such as the March outages, thousands of workers can be needed.
• It will lease out 100 box trucks at the ready in the case of a large response.

As many residents were left without power for days in March, Westchester County Executive George Latimer called for the resignations of the leaders of Con Edison and NYSEG. He criticized the companies for setting unrealistic restoration expectations and in some cases, telling customers power was restored when it hadn’t been.

On Tuesday, Latimer stood with Cawley and other officials to discuss the effort and struck a different tone. He said with winter, and potential storms on the way, he was hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened in March.

“We know that if we’re working in advance, working cooperatively, we have the best possible chance to not repeat some of the instances that happened last year,” Latimer said.

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