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Con Ed Keeps Overpromising On When Power Will Be Fully Restored Post-Isaias
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Aug 11, 2020
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Shavana Wong
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Aug 11, 2020
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Day after day, Con Edison has promised that power would soon be fully restored to almost all New Yorkers who lost electricity in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaias. And while the number of people without power has dropped daily, others have stubbornly remained powerless as the company sent out updated alerts on when power "should be back," or a new "restoration time."
By Tuesday morning, the power company has restored electricity to 98 percent of the 260,000 customers' impacted by the storm that downed power lines and trees.
However, 1,200 customers in Queens still lacked power, with "small numbers" in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Some 4,600 customers in Westchester still didn't have electric service.
Another 4,800 outages were also being addressed—but they weren't related to the storm. The company did not immediately provide a breakdown by county of those outages or what caused them.
Shavana Wong of South Ozone Park, Queens got an alert Tuesday afternoon saying power was restored in her area (though her home still did not have power) after she was promised electricity restoration by nighttime on August 6th, then August 8th, then August 9th, August 10th, and again by 10 p.m. Tuesday.
Wong called customer service in recent days to see if the company had more details, and was told as recently as Saturday no crew had been assigned.
After she got the alert saying power had been restored in her area, she told us, "the wires are still hanging throughout the block and the post that fell is still leaning."
A screenshot of Con Edison alerts to a Queens customer who was without power for a week.
Provided by Shavana Wong
A company spokesperson didn't immediately comment on why customers were given such updates, only to be let down.
On Tuesday, the company said it would "continue with the same intensity and emphasis on safety" for the remaining "scattered outages" from the storm.
"The remaining outages involve particularly extensive damage and complicated restorations for individual customers," according to a Con Edison press release.
Queens elected officials demanded on Tuesday that Con Ed issue a rebate to 73,000 customers in the borough for August's bill to make up for the outages, which continued as a heat wave descended onto the city.
"Con Edison has the power now to choose to do right by its Queens customers for the prolonged trauma and danger imposed upon them," Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee said in a statement. "The only thing reliable about Con Edison post-Isaias was its consistent failure to communicate accurately and effectively to the public."
City Councilmember Peter Koo, who represents Flushing, said, "In a post-Sandy New York City, there is simply no excuse to be overwhelmed and unprepared for a storm of this magnitude."
See here for where you can pick up dry ice in Westchester and Queens. Fill out a claims form for spoiled food and medicine here.
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power outages
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tropical storm isaias
Sydney Pereira
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