The Full Press Conference can be seen HERE.
May 21, 2018 – In response to the two March Nor’easters (Winter Storms Riley and Quinn), United Westchester, Co-Chaired by Westchester County Executive George Latimer and New York State Assemblyman David Buchwald, have released recommendations and a 49-page report on the failures of the utilities to the Public Service Commission, Con Edison and NYSEG. United Westchester is the unprecedented group of local, Westchester County, New York State and federal officials working together to find solutions to prevent and better respond to storms. The in-depth report and its series of early recommendations were compiled from the views of these elected officials.
Latimer said: “These recommendations are not silver bullets – there is no silver bullet. We need a series of intelligent things to occur for this to work. Most importantly, for this system to work the utilities and the local governments need to work hand in glove. What this report does is make very specific recommendations about what can be improved based on the specifics of what we all saw those days.”
Buchwald said: “The many officials who contributed to this United Westchester Power Outage Report shared insightful observations, describing what was too often a disorganized utility response to the outages of March. This in-depth report finds a broad range of problems that need to be addressed so that power restoration efforts in Westchester County can be significantly improved.”
Following a robust discussion of concerns and ideas, elected officials were asked to respond to a questionnaire about the problems with the storm response in their communities, and ideas for improvements. The questionnaire included 21 categories which included: preparation, communication, coordination of crew, dry ice / water distribution and preventative maintenance.
The report also makes public the creation of a 12-member Executive Committee to coordinate the work of United Westchester.
United Westchester’s early recommendations, based on the feedback from elected officials, are:
- The Public Service Commission, as well as Con Edison and NYSEG, should perform an analysis of their ability to forecast the severity of future storms and their process of preparation.
- Utility companies should invite county, state and federal elected officials to participate in pre-storm conference calls when they are held.
- Utility companies must fully integrate the contact information they receive from elected officials into their emergency response outreach.
- Con Edison officials should reevaluate their intergovernmental conference calls.
- Utility companies should revisit the practice of using robo-calls to inform customers of the status of their power.
- The utility companies need to significantly improve their internal communication processes during storm emergencies
- The utility companies and the Public Service Commission should rigorously reevaluate the functioning and reliance on the mutual aid system for power outage restorations.
- Utilities should devise a better approach for providing government officials information as to how many and what kind of crews are providing services to each municipality (or NYSEG circuit).
- NYSEG should commit to providing liaisons to municipalities at the start of storm restoration work, rather than days later.
- Con Ed should strengthen their municipal liaison program.
- Utility companies should engage all government partners to identify an up-to-date and comprehensive list of critical facilities that are in immediate need of attention when their power goes out.
- A dialogue should be initiated between governments and utilities about whether it is possible to better help vulnerable customers.