County Legislator Terri Ward, left, was the first speaker
MONTICELLO – About two dozen people attended the first of two Public
Service Commission input sessions in Monticello on Wednesday, on how utilities
responded to two devastating March storms. The first, and worse,
driven by near-hurricane force winds, knocked out power for several days
in most of Sullivan County.
Several of the dozen who spoke were county officials, including Deputy County Manager Dan Depew.
“Talk about communication, about the appropriate channels of communication, about the assembly of resources to assist emergency service providers in getting roads open,” Depew said. “We’re going to talk about making sure the information the utilities have on hand to communicate back to the public is accurate. Telling people that their power will be back on in 24 hours and it’s not going to be back on for eight days is completely unacceptable.”
Eight days would have been better than the ten days Town of Highland Councilwoman Kaitlin Haas waited.
Haas: “… our utility companies
failed us”
“Electricity was life or death for our residents,” said Haas,
recounting some medical emergencies, including a resident who needed power
for life-sustaining equipment, and another who accidentally cut off a
finger.
“Our county emergency operations center supports us but our utility companies failed us,” Haas said. “We jokingly, and because you have to have levity to survive situations like this, refer to ourselves as ‘Highland island’.”
Other speakers had suggestions, including reopening NYSEG’s Liberty call center, to requiring cellular phone carriers to have backup power for their towers.
PSC Administrative Law Judge James Costello said this is one of a dozen hearings throughout areas of the state impacted by the storms.
“The information will be summarized and go into a report that’s presented to the Commission on Public Service,” Costello said.
A second session, drawing an even bigger crowd, was held Wednesday evening at the Monticello Firehouse.
