Is Con Ed Ready? Henri Headed to Rye with 3-6 Inches of Rain, 70 MPH Winds
Is Con Ed ready?
The category 1 Hurricane Henri is headed to Rye with 3-6 inches of rain and 70 mile per hour winds. A State of Emergency Declaration is effect in Westchester (and many other counties) prohibiting travel on Sunday between 10am and 4pm on city streets.
The City is reminding residents to remove vehicles from low lying areas, and from all city streets. Residents should secure outdoor furniture and other loose items.
One of the biggest questions is how Con Ed will handle the expected power outages, and if it will perform any better that it did only one year ago during Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020 when some residents were without power for over a week. In State testimony in the wake of Isaias, Rye Mayor Josh Cohn spoke about “Con Ed’s Persistent Misbehavior” and in a storm post mortem interview, when asked by MyRye.com “From a scale of one (I’m moving my house off the grid because I don’t trust Con Ed) to ten (I have 100% confidence in Con Ed and have invited their management team over for holiday dinner with the family), rate your confidence in how Con Ed will handle the next nasty storm.” Cohn gave the Con Ed a “2“.
When asked about the Con Ed response issue on Saturday, County boss and Rye guy George Latimer told MyRye.com “It affects me like it affects everyone else. They are telling us they are ready.” Expecting power outages, Latimer continued “we [just] don’t want to lose it [power] for 2-3 days,” and discussing Con Ed’s tight leash on staffing levels expressed his concern “they don’t have enough crews to handle it.”
How do you think Con Ed will handle the storm response? Leave a comment below.
The greater concern is how will our electeds and their appointees handle a power outage and the next climate change event? Early Friday evening we received two texts from the National Weather Service informing us to be prepared for Henri. At the end of the text, in all caps, was this message:
“Follow instructions from local officials.”
No instructions from local officials arrived.
At 6:58 on Saturday, the City of Rye finally sent out an email with the most basic information. In those 24+ hours, friends and neighbors in my circle were checking in each other, extending offers for help. Grateful to be part of a circle of caring people, but not everyone has that blessing. There are vulnerable people who don’t get email blasts or text messages and live alone.
In that population of vulnerable people are those whose very lives depend on power. We called the Rye Police to ask if the Mayor and City Council had plans for shelter and the opportunity to power up essential devices. After all, we’ve been through this before with Superstorm Sandy. You’d think the County and municipalities would be prepared for the possibility that power might go out. It’s a regular occurence in the shore towns.
The Rye PD had no idea and said they’d call back. When they did call back, we were informed that none of those in positions to provide the purchase of solar generators (sale at cost plus a small percentage), shelter, evacuation routes, or set up networks of volunteers to check in on our less-abled residents. It’s off to the hospital for those who rely on life-saving instruments requiring electricity. Henri surge, meet Delta surge.
It seems we dodged a bullet this time around. However, with climate change more frequent extreme weather is a certainty. Will our local and County electeds get ahead of those events? Irene, the opening salvo of the “new hurricanes”, was 10 years ago.
ConEd won’t do their best unless we demand nimble, planful, and collaborative responses from our electeds first. Notifications such as the one we received 12 hours before Henri’s surge are the bare minimum.