Summer is the time to fix utilities' winter storm preparation

It's finally starting to feel like summer, and the next winter storm with a name seems a long time away. But if there's any hope of New York's utilities being better prepared for the next nor'easter, the hard work needs to be done now. 

The tens of thousands who went day after day without heat and light in March, and perhaps again in May, should take some comfort in knowing that their public officials have not stopped pressuring the utilities to answer for their failings and detail their plans for improvement. State, county and local officials continue to meet with Con Edison, NYSEG and O&R, demanding, cajoling, pleading for a reason to believe that there will be fewer and shorter outages next time.

Still, there is a nagging sense that things won't get better, that the utilities will make passive promises to improve and then revert to blaming Mother Nature for Hurricane Ziggy. 

Why? Because it's happened before. After Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012, a state commission and others explained in stark terms that the utilities had to assess their infrastructure, review their workforce and take other fundamental steps to protect their customers from outages caused by ice and wind. The utilities have claimed to spend billions to improve their preparedness.

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And yet, when Winter Storms Riley and Quinn arrived in March, taking down trees and power lines, it seemed at times that no one had any idea what was happening. We were all in the dark  (a lot of us, literally). Then a May storm, featuring two tornadoes, left many customers powerless again.

"We are not forgetting about this; We want to see specific actions by the utilities," said state Assemblyman David Buchwald, D-White Plains, who worked with Westchester County Executive George Latimer to bring together a Westchester-wide group of officials and produce a fast, detail-packed report of recommendations for the utilities. "It's remarkable how many recommendations from (after Sandy) apply to the storms we experienced in 2018. We need to show tangible progress."

Here are three broad problems that officials are focusing on:

• The utilities' workforces: Officials want to know how many line workers utilities need to handle storms, compared to how many they have, and how many are deployed before a storm hits. There also needs to be a definitive study of the "mutual aid" system, which relies on utilities to contract with out-of-state workers for extra help, and a determination of how to fix or replace it. Westchester County legislators who grilled Con Ed and NYSEG reps at a recent meeting insisted that the utilities are understaffed and disorganized. "It wasn't a question of the storms; It was a question of bodies," legislator Kitley Covill, D-Bedford, said. 
• Infrastructure: Officials want to know that utilities are doing all they can to: identify critical parts of the grid that need to be maintained and quickly repaired; work with municipalities to trim and remove trees and branches; replace poles and wires with newer, more dependable forms; and consider the cost-effectiveness of underground wires. Westchester legislator MaryJane Shimsky, D-Hastings-on-Hudson, said it's time to upgrade a system built on "a collection of popsicle sticks."
• Communication: This is a big one. Virtually everyone agrees that the utilities have done a terrible job of communicating — internally, with municipalities, and with customers. Their inability to provide accurate and timely information, and willingness to crank out inaccurate information via robocall, has damaged their overall credibility. The utilities seem to at least partly agree. Plans are underway for utilities to assign staffers to work with groups of municipalities and to provide more accurate information to officials and customers about the all-important movement of work crews and their timetables for repairs. "We can't have the lack of timely information and insight," Buchwald said. In Rockland, where problems were less severe, County Executive Ed Day said he believes O&R's communication flow has been "fixed."

Who's in charge of ensuring that the utilities do better? The state Public Service Commission regulates utilities and is investigating what went wrong in March and May. There's no timetable for the PSC to release its findings, but an official who recently addressed two state Assembly committees mentioned a litany of problems related to road clearing, communications, damage assessment, dispatch of workers, use of information technology and overall restoration.

Not everyone believes that the PSC is up to the task. Westchester legislator Mike Kaplowitz, D-Somers, still furious over NYSEG's performance in March and May, says that the PSC has not pushed NYSEG to improve until now and will likely back down again. "The PSC has failed to do the analysis — or they don't have the backbone," he said. Kaplowitz is asking Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who called for the PSC's investigation, to allow for an independent assessment of NYSEG. 

Latimer, who called in March for senior executives at Con Ed and NYSEG to resign, supports Kaplowitz's call for an independent look at NYSEG.

With temperatures touching the 80s, schools not even out yet, and so many summer vacation plans still taking shape, it's hard to focus on what next winter may bring. But if the Lower Hudson Valley is going to get more responsive utilities, and fewer and shorter outages, customers better hope that public officials spend summer and fall in the utilities' faces.

Gary Stern is engagement editor. Follow him on Twitter: @GarySternNY