WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. January 19, 2006: A Con Edison spokesperson reported to WPCNR moments ago that the number of  households without power in Westchester County prior to 1 P.M. was 15,000. He did not have a number for the homes powerless in White Plains because Con Ed does not monitor the numbers on individual communities with "that kind of specificity."  He reported that kind of information is available to district maintenance offices supervising the repairs. A new number of households restored and without power is due shortly.

Joe Petta of the Con Ed Communications Office in New York told WPCNR all repairs throughout Westchester County were expected to be completed by Friday evening with the possibility it might take until Saturday morning.

Live Wire Clearance

In regard to the task of defusing live wires down in White Plains, Petta explained that repair areas are prioritized by the number of households affected when any line goes down. Con Edison learns of outages two ways: by telephone calls from consumers and from their own systems monitoring equipment.

The lines powering the most homes are repaired first, countywide he said.

Petta said Con Edison prioritizes their repair by examining their monitoring system and can tell by looking at "screens" how many homes are affected by any one line that shows up on their system as being out of service. Line A, for example, he said might affect 10,000, another line only 10. The lines are repaired in descending order of households served.

Checking the Scene

Petta said the system cannot tell Con Ed what is causing the line outage. He said that can only be determined by the crew when they go out to check the site where the out-of-service wire is.

In the case of live wires, Petta said that a Con Ed repairperson cuts the wire when they arrive at the scene,  but do not necessarily repair it at the same time. 

The way the wire is shut down depends on the specific situation. The Con Ed crew could either throw a switch on a transformer, cut the wire off at the pole, throw a switch along the line, depending on where its feed is coming from. Petta cautioned though that wires are shut down on a priority basis and repaired on a priortiy basis depending on the number of households and customers served, which explains why some wires are left down and live longer than others.

"The Number 1 Priority of Restoring power," Petta told WPCNR, "is we start reparing lines that restore the most customers wehen they are repaired."

Key Installations.

Petta said Con Edison maintains of procedure where they "I.D." customers such as hospitals and nursing homes  which have life-sustaining equipment if they register with Con Edison. Those customers are brought back on line as a major priority. WPCNR notes that most of the facilities have generators that can pick up the power until Con Edison brings them back. It could not be determined whether the Battle Hill Houses on Harmon Avenue without power Wednesday and Thursday evening had registered with Con Edison as having life-sustaining equipment in the building.

Con Ed Consulting Available to Cities

Asked how Con Edison worked with individual Departments of Public Works, and specifically White Plains in managing through major power crises, Petta said "Con Ed works  in close contact with city managers and town managers."

He said cities can request a Con Edison supervisor to work with them during times of crisis in their command center. "We will supply that."

Petta did not know whether the City of White Plains had a such a Con Edison logistics specialist working with the Department of Public Works  and the White Plains Police Thursday evening. WPCNR has asked the city if the Department of Public Works was working directly with a coordinator from Con Edison on this situation.

No Statement from City.

At noon, WPCNR requested a statement from the Mayor's Office on the State of the City 28 hours into recovering from the Wednesday windstorm. as of 2 PM, no statement has been issued from the Mayor's Office, but the police have issued a new traffic report.

Petta said the amount of damage was extensive for a wind storm, causing conditions rarely seen except when snow and ice were involved.