Many buildings in Midtown and Lower Manhattan that had their electricity restored still have no heat and hot water, because they don't have steam. Con Edison is the company with the most experience in buried power delivery. Shouldn't we be entitled to expect they would have enough experience to have a plan for a major storm? Even a hundred year storm? They've been at it for more than a hundred years.
Con Ed is urging customers to conserve energy, and if the storm damaged equipment is inside your building, you're on your own.
(more below the fold)
Con Edison not reporting customers – tells customers to DIY
http://www.coned.com/...
While more than 90 percent of the nearly 1 million customers affected by Sandy have been restored, the company continued efforts to restore the approximately 70,000 customers whose equipment can be safely re-energized. In addition, the company is working with the New York City Buildings Department to expedite the restoration of about 20,000 customers in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens whose own electrical equipment was damaged by flooding and cannot be safely re-energized without repairs and an inspection by an electrician.
Customers requiring inside-the-premises electrical work are not listed on the Con Edison Outage Map or included in the total number of outages reported by the company. Con Edison and the New York City Buildings Department are collaborating to guide customers through the process of repairing their own equipment. For information, click here: http://www.coned.com/...
The number of customers, sounds like a simple number, but it’s not what you think it means. We hear those words and think it counts everyone who gets a monthly bill from Con Ed.
Not so.
We are dealing with newspeak here.
A customer in a place like New York could be a residential high-rise, or a commercial complex, or an organization with multiple sites. So when you hear that 1 customer lost power, is that a single home? A single business? A single police station?
Or is it 300 apartments (1 building, 1 customer), 20 businesses (1 building, 1 customer), 59 apartment complexes (New York City Housing, 1 customer), and so on.
A lot of calls have been made for buried power lines. Yes, in some places, that will be a needed and valuable investment. But buried technology is not a simple solution, where one size fits all.
Con Edison is the company with the most experience in buried power delivery. They've been at it for more than a hundred years. Shouldn't we be entitled to expect they would have enough experience to have a plan for a major storm?
A brief history of Con Edison bringing steam power to New York Cityhttp://www.coned.com/...
Con Edison has 3 steam generating plants in Manhattan, 1 in Queens, and 1 in Brooklyn
http://www.coned.com/...
Steam explosion NYC, 2007
Steam Blast Jolts Midtown, Killing One
And then there was the massive power failure in 2004 when a power line in Ohio overheated and failed, sending a power surge back the line through Canada all the way to New York. Essentially surge protectors failed at many places. Did we ever find out why the utility company with the most experience didn't have better equipment?
New York had a transit strike a few years ago and Mayor Bloomberg made a big deal about it costing the city a BILLION dollars a day in lost economic activity. And that was when most people could still get to work. Why aren't these private power companies held to account when their failures to have a plan, and their failures to upgrade equipment leave us without essential services?
Now it's not just lost economic activity. It's winter for Fxxks sake! Lives are on the line because they spent years maximizing profits.
Many buildings in Midtown and Lower Manhattan that had their electricity restored still have no steam - steam that is used for heat and hot water.
Con Edison urges these customers to conserve energy by not doing the laundry.
http://www.coned.com/...
Con Edison continues to urge customers in Mid- and Lower Manhattan who were affected by Hurricane Sandy outages to conserve energy as much as possible while crews work to reinforce the underground electric system. Customers can help by refraining from using non-essential appliances such as washers and dryers. Con Edison is in contact with building owners to encourage limiting use of certain elevator banks or other electrical equipment.
Meanwhile out in the Rockaways they have returned to ancient technology and are burning fires in the streets at night.
From NY1 political blogger, Bob Hardt, Wednesday 11/7/12, 2 p.m.
This is a gut-wrenching short video made by filmmakers Alex Braverman and Poppy de Villeneuve. I’m not sure I’d follow their advice and give a single penny to the Red Cross but it’s definitely worth watching.
Perhaps not tonight, since it's snowing, and the wind is howling. But will someone desperate bring their generator in doors, or try to heat their home using a gas stove? We have a humanitarian crisis in play, and it's far from over.
Rockaway Needs Us - LIPA Lies to NY1 about customers without power (hat tip to NY1 and Bob Hardt)
http://www.dailykos.com/...
As we cope through this Noreaster and help our community to recover, let's include our neighbors in the Dakotas, who have far too much experience surviving without heat in the winter.
We Won - With NDN Votes. Time to Help Save NDN Lives by Aji
http://www.dailykos.com/...