Poll: How Can Utilities be Made to Change?
With week-long (or more) power outages two years in a row, residents want to know how to change the way outages are handled.
Hurricane Irene, October snowstorm...Hurricane Sandy and now the "Snow'easter." All of these storms in just the last 14 months left hundreds or thousands of residents in the cold and the dark for a week or more.
What's going on? Weather may be unpredictable, but power outages don't seem like they should have to be.
Many residents are feeling fed up, and demand change. It's hard to know the best way to pressure the utility companies into being more aggressive in either planning for such emergencies or in repairing their systems more quickly.
At some point, we'll be past this outage—but we should have a plan for how we will endeavor to make sure such outage never happen again.
Tell us what you think will be the best way to effect change in the response—take the poll and add your comments in the box below.
kellynn
5:44 pm on Wednesday, November 7, 2012
remove ALL trees that are near utility poles/power lines. or put the wires underground. simple solutions to prevent power outages like this in the future.
shelini
7:30 pm on Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Definitely wires underground.
LB
12:33 am on Thursday, November 8, 2012
I agree with Kellynn and Shelini. While I think that big, old stately trees are beautiful and and add character to towns, they are a detriment when there's a storm.
Clara Medina
9:45 am on Thursday, November 8, 2012
Agree, underground wires. They should have started that months ago. For now they should just start restoring service everywhere they drive by and stop making excuses.
David
11:36 am on Thursday, November 8, 2012
Delete David
11:35 am on Thursday, November 8, 2012
NOTHING will change unless there the utility providers face competition. Do you all remember the outrageous amounts being charged by Bell Atlantic for local phone service before there was competition in that market??
K
12:05 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2012
You people are silly. This is not about competition..... You have to look at the magnitude of manpower and materials that are needed to get power restored. the utility is even limited by Govt on how much they are allowed to stock pile and since they have to produce earning for the greedy wall street factions.....thye cant keep quadruple the amt of manpower on payroll all year long. PSEG did an OUTSTANDING job lining up manpower poised at our border to come in and start tackling this work after the storm passed.
As far as putting wires underground.....it is a GREAT idea but has too many obstacles to get past on right of way as well as cost to get it done. If it were that cheap and simple of a fiz the Phone & Cable companies would have done that instead of piggy backing on the elec company poles. People need to stop belly aching and understand the magnitude of what took place and he happy they have homes left standing vs the people in southern NJ who lost everything.
John Patten
1:51 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2012
The only competition would be some sort of home-generation of power, since it's the lines that are the problem. Maybe even this cold fusion generator (http://www.venusproject.org/?gclid=CKKSk9mEwLMCFQyk4Aodh1YA7A) would work
—if only it was real!
Anthony
7:44 am on Friday, November 9, 2012
Cut some trees going down on washington rock road, or build a net to catch the falling trees or put these lines underground
ambitiously blonde
2:03 pm on Friday, November 9, 2012
If they aren't willing to take the money they charge you each month on your bill (it's called "Customer charge") and by their own definitition which is also located on your bill, is for maintenance... then I say they should be made to pay each homeowner who is without electric service a fee for each day that they are without service to cover their lodging and food... make the fines nice and big to deter this BS and corporate greed.
David
10:21 pm on Saturday, November 10, 2012
K- You are an idiot who knows nothing about economics.
mrsp
10:51 pm on Saturday, November 10, 2012
either wires underground (sounded expensive until these annual storms -- penny wise pound foolish at this point) or yes, micro-generated power sources, such as neighborhood or home-based solar, etc. Lots of folks do this around the world already, as primary or secondary -- even in the US. Not much to figure out. Whatever else, the arrogantly incompetent utilities with a lock on markets -- weather it's PSEG or Verizon -- must be broken. This is the wakeup call.
Nick Jones
8:28 am on Sunday, November 11, 2012
There are links on this site that will lead people in the right direction with Sandy recovery issues.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Foundation-Experts/400020743385127