Rant and Rave

We have received good news from some that your lights are back on – but for others, the expected restoration date from Con Edison has been delayed until Sunday. The situation has lead to a wealth of interesting comments from our readers and here are a just a few. Read these and then post your own. Feel free to rant and rave – maybe it will make you feel better:

From a Greenacres Resident: Has Con Edison run out of utility poles? Just driving around today and noticed progress on Brewster at Brewster and Kingston. Trees were removed yesterday and now poles have been delivered. They are waiting now to put the poles in (hopefully this afternoon, but not definite) and then get the transformers, wiring, etc. done hopefully by tomorrow. So there is progress but the job is far from complete. But it is a start.

In talking with the two fine gentlemen working down there I learned several things, some of which were a little disconcerting. The two gentlemen were from North Carolina and were excited about being able to help out - that was nice. However, the poles were Verizon poles as Con Edison seems to have run out of poles...I hope they have enough wiring and transformers to finish the job.

But the most disconcerting thing I heard (rumor obviously) is that a large number (in the hundreds) of electrical workers came up from Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, etc but were told they could not work up here because they were non-union??? If that is true, that is totally unacceptable and I can't wait to hear the Con Ed union answer to that.

From former Mayor Carolyn Stevens: (who also has no power!) First, I want folks to know how hard our staff is working. The guys from the Department of Public Works cleared the snow last night and then picked up trash this morning and were back removing tree limbs and such .... I hope everyone appreciates how hard they are working.

On the issue of Con Ed … the problem is money and their bottom line. What Con Ed failed to this time was properly stage equipment and out of state crews just outside of the storm path for a quick response. They can't claim surprise like they did in March of 2010.... This storm was known and the scope was known...Con Ed should have mutual aid crews rolling before the storm ever hit...Westchester should not have had to wait 4 days for out of state crews to show up. The only reason to not have done it would because they didn't want to spend the money staging the crews and putting them up while waiting for the storm to pass.

Frustrated: Scarsdale – Con Ed has kept us in the dark, both literally and figuratively for way too long. Con Ed doesn't allow the people with information to communicate to their customers. The Con Ed people who can talk to customers have NO information. How is that acceptable? We need to make sure they are held accountable and hold our local politicians accountable. If they cannot successfully advocate for us, what good are they?

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