Shattered poles, downed wires, blocked streets, poor communication, lengthy power outages and frustrated customers waiting in parking lots for deliveries of dry ice and water were frequent occurrences last winter. For too many residents of northern Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties, this has become the norm every time a storm hits.
As a former Westchester County legislator, I worked on many storm recovery efforts such as Sandy, Irene and the Halloween nor’easter. As part of the governor’s administration, I did similar work in the aftermath of several blizzards. Drawing on my experience, I am bewildered by NYSEG and Con Ed’s refusal to learn the lessons of each storm, and I’m outraged by their refusal to modernize their grids and implement procedures for quicker recovery.
After every storm these utilities roll out the same stale response about the number of poles replaced, substations damaged, and the need to rebuild entire systems. When the damaged infrastructure is finally rebuilt, they install the same antiquated, non-resilient system that was just destroyed.
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