WPCNR WEATHER SCOOP. By John F. Bailey. July 26, 2006: Councilman Dennis Power newly minted appointee to Robert Greer’s Council seat became the first White Plains and Westchester County public official to announce his concern for Con Edison’s announcement yesterday that  the 25,000 plus White Plains and Westchester residents who lost power due to last week’s “Mystery Storm” would not receive food spoilage refunds -- a fact that was exposed by WPCNR when verifying a WCBS 880 false news report.

 Power also told WPCNR the city needed to look at the timeliness and ways to inform its residents in an emergency, saying the city perhaps needed a 311 number for citizens to call. (Citizens and City Hall, as documented by WPCNR had no central source of information to get a handle on what was happening as the power was wiped out across the southend of the city, leaving 7,000 without Con Ed service. To date the Mayor, the County Executive, County Legislators have not responded to WPCNR inquiries as to whether they will defer to Con Edison's announced refusal to offer food spoilage refunds for the storm damage that affected 25,000 plus Westchester residents, 7,000 in White Plains.

 Andrew Spano has not issued a statement to WPCNR on his reaction to Con Edison’s announcement yesterday, that the utility would not cover food spoilage for storm damage in the county. Neither has County Legislator Bill Ryan (of White Plains) who is on vacation, nor  County Legislator Tom Abinanti, whose aid has told WPCNR Mr. Abinanti would be in touch with WPCNR.

Mr. Abinanti conducted the County hearing on the power outages Monday afternoon, where Con Edison’s representative neglected to inform residents complaining about storm damage that their food spoilage claims would not be covered.

Mayor Joseph Delfino of White Plains has not issued a statement either, neither has Council President Rita Malmud. The Mayor complained that Con Edison was not responding with enough utility line crews last week, and his Commissioner of Public Works told WPCNR earlier this week, Con Edison supplied 2 to 3 utility units to White Plains Wednesday and Thursday after the storm, with 2 line crews the predominant Con Edison presence.

Power reached today by WPCNR, said that Con Edison agreeing to County Executive Spano’s request that Con Edison allow Westchester residents the same $350 in food spoilage refunds to be claimed without receipts, as they are allowing in Queens (on equipment related power losses) “was a good start, unfortunately it’s still tied into the heat wave thing and the grid, and that is the problem that Con Ed has said they would immediately has said it would reimburse with the $350 and the $7,000 for businesses, which is good, but most of the problems in White Plains is that it was storm related and wires and things coming down so most of that is after what they’re talking about.”

When WPCNR pointed out that Con Edison executive Mark Drexel (Acting Director of Emergency Management for Con Edison) did not make that difference clear at the public hearing Monday, even though listening to complaints about storm damage (and reporters covering that hearing have told WPCNR confirm this) Power agreed, saying “Yeah, it was a little cloudy. I’ve already started checking into that to verify the clarification. I know that public safety has been working very efficiently with emergency services, in terms of getting the numbers by municipality, but I am very much interested in checking out on this. I saw a glimmer of hope there but a lot of people were affected in a big way.”

“I don’t want to go out and talk about stuff because I was gathering facts. From Wednesday through Sunday I had been going around (White Plains). I just couldn’t believe the amount of devastation. The neighborhoods were racked, I just couldn’t believe it. It kind of puts things in perspective," Power said.

New Councilman Questions City Ability to Communicate in Unfolding Emergency.

“I’m also very concerned or very interested to see, because I think our public safety and DPW did some phenomenal work. I’m going to be checking into how we as a city are able to respond and deal with phone calls in terms of our systems in being able to direct people. Whether there is a need for a 311 line. I think this  (storm) highlights again the need. On normal days, it can be difficult to determine where to turn to or which department to go to for information for things. Now in this kind of thing it just heightens that awareness that we need to be able to handle (emergencies) more efficiently. In terms of communication that’s where we need to look at better efficiencies.”

Last Week WPCNR asked the Mayor’s Office if they were planning a review of how emergency communications could be handled more efficiently in a city wide emergency. The Mayor’s Office has not responded.