The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC), the entity with regulatory oversight responsibility for utilities operating within the state, has opened an investigation into Con Edison's failures associated with the recent Nor’easters that impacted Scarsdale and surrounding areas.
The PSC Chair, John B. Rhodes, remarked on March 06, 2018, "This is a severe and prolonged outage, with many thousands of New Yorkers still out, hundreds of impassable roads, and failures of coordination and communications." He continued, "We will undertake a thorough and intense review, because this response and restoration has not met the expectations of New Yorkers." The related PSC case (matter) number associated with the investigation is 18-00618, “In the Matter of Utility Preparation and Response to Power Outages During the March 2018 Winter Storms,” and related documents are available for public review on the PSC website.
To support the PSC’s efforts to identify and address related problems, the Village will be submitting written comments for the public record. To that end, and to emphasize the human impact of Con Ed's insufficient storm preparation and response activities, we are soliciting written observations and storm impact stories from Scarsdale residents and businesses to strengthen our official correspondence to the PSC.
Accordingly, please submit at your earliest convenience any Con Ed storm response-related written comments and stories by email to StormStories@scarsdale.com, or by U.S. mail to:
Village Manager’s Office
Village of Scarsdale
1001 Post Road
Scarsdale, NY 10583
Your correspondence addressing the PSC’s informational needs will be included with the Village’s letter directed to the PSC Chair, Mr. John B. Rhodes, and shared with Westchester County for inclusion in their formal correspondence directed to the PSC. All such written comments become a part of the public record. Residents and local businesses may also submit comments related to the ConEd storm response directly to the PSC through their website; no submittal deadline is available at this time.
Please also note that the Village will be preparing, separate from our PSC correspondence, a local after-action assessment to characterize the magnitude of the local impact and to identify aspects of our response and recovery efforts that worked well or may represent opportunities for improvement.