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November 12, 2012

Frustration simmers as outages continue in New York, Jersey

The Associated Press Associated Press

NEW YORK — New Yorkers railed Sunday against a utility that has lagged behind others in restoring power two weeks after the superstorm that socked the region, criticizing its slow pace as well as a dearth of information.

About 120,000 customers in New York and New Jersey remained without power Sunday, including tens of thousands of homes and businesses that were too damaged to connect to power even if it was running in their neighborhood. More than eight million lost power during the storm, and some during a later nor’easter.

Separately, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano visited with disaster-relief workers Sunday in Staten Island’s Midland Beach neighborhood, which is still devastated two weeks after Sandy hit.

The lack of power restoration for a relative few in the densely populated region at the heart of the storm reinforced Sandy’s fractured effect on the area: tragic and vicious to some, merely a nuisance to others.

Perhaps none of the utilities have drawn criticism as widespread, or as harsh, as the Long Island Power Authority. Nearly 50,000 of the homes and businesses it serves were still without power Sunday evening, and 55,000 more couldn’t safely connect even though their local grids were back online because their wiring and other equipment had been flooded. It would need to be repaired or inspected before those homes could regain power, LIPA said.

“We certainly understand the frustration that’s out there,” LIPA’s chief operating officer, Michael Hervey, said in a conference call late Sunday. But, he said, the storm had been worse than expected, no utility had as many workers in place beforehand as it would have liked and the power was coming back rapidly “compared to the damage that’s been incurred.”

Customers told of calling LIPA multiple times a day for updates and getting no answer, or contradictory advice.

“I was so disgusted the other night,” said Carrie Baram of Baldwin Harbor, who said she calls the utility three times a day. “I was up till midnight, but nobody bothered to answer the telephone.”

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