ALBANY – Governor Cuomo, Wednesday, charged that the utility companies had a “reckless disregard … to adequately plan for tropical storm Isaias.” tens of thousands of people lost power from the storm and he said the utilities’ “performance was unacceptable.”
The governor said, “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. 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.
As a result, he directed the state Department of Public Service to launch an investigation into Verizon, PSEG Long Island, Con Edison, Central Hudson Gas & Electric, Orange and Rockland Utilities, and New York State Electric & Gas “to understand how such a failure could have taken place.”
In the meantime, the governor said the Department of Public Service is working with utility officials to restore service as rapidly as possible.
