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QUEENS WEEKLY, AUGUST 16, 2020
Acting Borough President Sharon Lee called for Con Edison to provide a rebate to customers in Queens who lost power during Tropical Storm Isaias on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020.
Offi cials demand Con Edison give rebate to Queens
customers who lost power during tropical storm
BY JACOB KAYE
With thousands of
Con Edison customers in
Queens still without power
a week after Tropical Storm
Isaias ripped through New
York, Acting Borough President
Sharon Lee blasted the
power company on Tuesday,
Aug. 11.
Finding fault in Con Edison’s
level of preparation and
their “inequitable and disproportionate
pace of power
restoration,” Lee, a handful
of elected officials at various
levels of government,
community board members
and Queens residents affected
by the outages called
for a full rebate in August
for the 73,000 customers who
lost power as a result of the
storm on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
“Con Edison has the
power now to choose to do
right by its Queens customers
for the prolonged trauma
and danger imposed upon
them,” Lee said. “I urge Con
Edison to offer immediate
and full rebates to the 73,000
Queens customers on this
month’s bill to remedy this
disproportionate and inequitable
restoration. It is the
very least Con Edison can
do.”
According to Lee, there
is precedent for Con Edison
clearing customers’ energy
bill following widespread
outages. In 2006, a Con Edison
power outage left 174,000
people in the borough in the
dark. It was later determined
that the power company had
failed to address issues with
power equipment which, in
turn, caused the outages.
The power company
agreed to a settlement that
provided $17 million to customers
affected by the outages,
half of which went toward
bill credits.
By Tuesday, Aug. 11,
over 2,740 customers in
Queens were experiencing
outages, although not all
outages were a direct result
of the storm, according to
Con Edison.
Tropical Storm Isaias
brought with it the secondlargest
outage event in the
company’s history. At its
peak, more than 73,000 customers
were without power
in Queens — the record for
storm-related outages is 1.1
million caused by Hurricane
Sandy in October 2012.
It also brought down a high
number of trees, with over
9,000 complaints of downed
trees in Queens made to the
New York City Parks Department
24 hours after the
storm.
While Lee and her colleagues
took issue with the
number of outages, they
also want answers for what
they see as a slow response
to restore power from Con
Edison.
By Saturday, Aug. 8,
around 14,000 customers in
Queens were still without
power, accounting for over
half of the outages remaining
in the city, according to
Lee. A higher percentage of
customers had their power
restored by the company in
all four other boroughs.
“Con Edison’s recovery
following Tropical Storm
Isaias has been inadequate,
sporadic and unacceptable,”
said New York State Senator
Toby Ann Stavisky. “I
understand restoring power
to 73,000 homes in Queens is
a difficult task, but leaving
thousands without power
nearly a week after the
storm is just plain dangerous.
Con Ed needs to be held
accountable for their listless
response.”
According to Con Edison,
the company assess which
repairs will restore power
for the highest number of
customers and prioritizes
those repairs.
“We restore power in
blocks. The damage that
impacts the most customers,”
Con Edison President
Tim Cawley said during an
interview with NY1 Monday
morning. “If we clear
up two trees and can restore
1,000 customers, we do that,
and we work our way down.
So early in the storm, the
outage numbers drop precipitously
because we’re
working the largest storm
numbers first. At the end,
we’re working scattered outages,
where there is significant
labor with less customers
restored.”
Even Queens residents
who didn’t lose their power
feel as though they’ve been
let down by Con Edison.
Yalena Figueroa, a photographer
in Astoria, has
been without internet for a
Photo courtesy of Lee’s office
week. Figueroa, who relies
on the internet for work and
has two children, said that
her internet connection cut
out around 3 p.m. on the day
of the storm. Although she
never lost power, a downed
Con Edison wire on her
block has prevented her internet
provider from being
able to restoring service.
“Con Edison keeps telling
us, ‘tomorrow it will be
fixed,’ but we’re going on a
week now,” Figueroa said.
“We’ve been told every day
that someone is coming. But
no one ever comes.”
According to Figueroa,
Con Edison has been sending
a worker to sit by the
downed wire in 12-hour
shifts, warning people to
stay away from it. However,
no one has attempted to
make the final repair.
“It’s just negligence at
this point,” Figueroa said.