COURIER LIFE, AUGUST 14-20, 2020 5
STORM BY KEVIN DUGGAN
aftermath of Isaias
He wants to give power to
the people!
Public Advocate Jumaane
Williams is calling on the
city to take control of the electric
utility Con Edison, slamming
the company for massive
power outages following
this week’s tropical
storm Isaias.
“The time has
now come for democratized
energy, public
power. It is clear
that what we have,
what exists, does not
work,” Williams said
at a press conference
outside of Con Ed’s
Flatbush Avenue
headquarters near
Fulton Street in Fort
Greene on Aug. 7.
Williams’ comments
come on the
heals of his report,
which presented a
roadmap for the city
to buy Con Ed’s grid,
and for the state to
expand its existing
utility company, the
New York Power Authority.
Because the scheme would
need state approval, the Public
Advocate is currently
drafting a resolution for the
Council calling on state authorities
to give Gotham the
ability to take over the distribution
assets of local utility
companies, such as Con Ed.
Buying the company’s New
York City network would be
paid for by issuing city or state
bonds, which would be an expensive
undertaking — as
the investor-owned company
boasts $12 billion in annual
revenues, $48 billion in assets,
and a $25.16 billion dollar market
capitalization.
His energy push comes
as more than 8,000 Brooklyn
households were left in
the dark when Isaias blew
through the city on Aug.
4, toppling trees and pulling
down antiquated aboveground
power lines mainly in
the borough’s southern belt.
Con Ed said the next day
that it was working to restore
more than 90,000 ratepayers
systemwide, marking the second
largest power outage in
their history — following only
Superstorm Sandy.
Making matters worse for
Con Ed, some 264,000 residents
in northern Manhattan
and Queens were left without
power on Friday morning due
to a glitch in the company’s
transmission system, Gothamist
reported.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on
Aug. 5 directed the state’s Public
Service Commission to investigate
the utilities after the
widespread blackouts.
“The large volume of outages
and the utilities’ failure
to communicate with customers
in real time proves they did
not live up to their legal obligations,”
Cuomo said in a statement.
“The fact that many customers
still do not know when
their power will be restored
makes it even more unacceptable.
The worst of this situation
was avoidable, and it cannot
happen again.”
Last Summer, Con Ed intentionally
cut service in
southern Brooklyn nabes like
Canarsie, Marine Park, Mill
Basin, and Flatbush, claiming
it was to prevent damage
to the grid during a heat wave
— which prompted pols like
state Sen. Zellnor Myrie to accuse
the company of harming
Black Brooklynites in an effort
to keep the power fl owing
to more well-heeled, predominantly
white nabes. Con Ed denied
those allegations.
Williams’ report is not the
fi rst call to seize the city and
state’s power, with Park Slope
Assemblyman Robert Carroll
introducing a similar measure
in late 2019 .
But while Carroll’s measure
failed to pick up much
steam, Williams hopes the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic will
spur legislators to fi nally take
steps to make power distribution
public — a process that
could take up to a decade.
“My hope is that now that
we are in a pandemic we are
really reviewing and trying
to see how we can, not go back
to normal, but how we can
go back better than normal,”
he said.
The recent blackouts have
prompted a number of other
pols to join Carroll and Williams’
calls, including Democratic
state senate nominee
Jabari Brisport, Councilman
Antonio Reynoso, and Assemblywoman
Mathylde Frontus.
In a statement, a spokesman
for Con Ed said that they
were focusing on safely returning
power to their customers,
but that they will review
Williams’s study.
Brooklyn Paper. “They
need to bring in someone
reliable. No one should
have to go a week without
power.”
In Bay Ridge, some residents
lost power for a few
days — but those living
near 86th Street and Narrows
Avenue said the outage
turned off a nearby traffi
c light that only started
working again on Aug. 12.
Shore Road Park also saw a
downed tree, which has not
yet been removed.
When reached for comment,
a Parks Department
spokesperson said the
agency has addressed at
least three quarters of its
Isaias-related emergencies,
such as impassible streets,
trees on houses, and trees
on electrical wires, which
receive the highest priority.
Parks offi cials received
more than 8,000 emergency
work orders citywide and
2,000 total work orders in
Brooklyn, a rep said.
“Faced with more service
requests than we typically
receive in more than
four months … we have addressed
more than 75 percent
of our Tropical Storm
Isaias-related tree emergencies
— trees blocking
streets and on houses fi rst
and foremost,” the department
said in a statement.
“As we continue to address
emergencies and priority
areas, we appreciate everyone’s
patience related to debris
removal.”
At a press conference on
Aug. 11, local elected offi -
cials slammed the city for
turning a blind eye to southern
Brooklyn yet again.
“Eight years since Hurricane
Sandy, apparently we
haven’t learned very much,”
said Councilman Justin
Brannan. “The reason why
hundreds of thousands of
people were without power
and people are still without
power today is because
trees like this were ignored.
There is a direct connection
between trees like this being
ignored for maintenance,
and the massive power outages
that we saw.”
Borough President Eric
Adams slammed the city’s
all-controlling power purveyor
for not moving to
bury the remainder of the
borough’s above-ground
power lines.
“How many times do we
have to go through the storm
to realize that storms are going
to come and they’re going
to get increasingly more
destructive?” he said.
More than 250,000
households in New York
City and Westchester were
left without power after Isaias
— marking the secondlargest
power outage in the
company’s history following
Superstorm Sandy. In
Brooklyn, a large pocket of
outages were concentrated
along the borough’s southern
and southeastern neighborhoods,
while the distant
isle of Manhattan’s power
grid remained mostly unscathed
through the storm.
“I can’t help but believe
that this slow outer-borough
response is refl ective
of how many of our agencies
see what happens in
the outer boroughs is not
as severe or signifi cant as
what happens in our business
sector but it is just as
important and we need to
understand that,” Adams
added.
Additional reporting by
Paul Frangipane and Lloyd
Mitchell
Public Advocate calls for
city control of Con Ed
Photos by Paul Frangipane and Lloyf Mitchell