I have driven through much of Greenburgh and and Mount Pleasant. I twice met with the teams in the Emergency Operations Centers in both Towns where Con Ed employees acting as municipal laisons are working with police chiefs and highway superintendents/commissioners.
First, Con Ed has been providing little useful information. Even the municipal laisons have not been fully informed of all Con Ed plans and operations within their area. Frustration over poor information has been so high that Con Ed officials are now providing daily conference calls - for municipal officials/operations officials and for federal/state/county officials. I have participated in several - most recently with members of Congress (Lowey and Engle), our state senators, all of Westchester's Assemblymembers and some County legislators. Even with this array, we gained little useful information beyond what is reported in the news media.
Second, while the Con Ed employees are working hard, there are far too few of them. Each town/laison has been assigned only a couple of crews. As a result, the more numerous town crews are far ahead and are waiting for Con Ed crews to de-power live wires and untangle trees/branches wrapped in wires so they can cut down and remove fallen trees and limbs. I have seen first hand that Greenburgh crews have worked hard to clean streets, clear trees and limbs - using in-house expertise to do many things that elsewhere communities are waiting for Con Ed to do.
Third, Con Ed has not been sufficiently coordinating with municipalities. There appear to special teams working on specific assignments beyond the control and knowledge of municipaI laisons and officials - thus operating without municipal support.
I suggested in our last conference call that Con Ed must immediately better coordinate with municipalities: 1. Provide more info and power to Con Ed community laisons to affect Con Ed operations in their area;
In the short run, we need to cut/clear what is left and restore power before the next storm converts the trees leaning on wires into more outages. Your latest email shows they have finally added workers and informed the laison of the effort so the town can continue to work effectively with Con Ed.
In the long term we need to examine whether Westchester any longer benefits by being part of a Con Ed also serving NYC.
TOM ABINANTI
Tom Abinanti
NYS Assembly (92 AD)
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