Bronx, NY – On August 4, 2020, damage from Tropical Storm Isaias resulted in the loss of power for over 200,000 Con Edison utility consumers including over 22,000 homes in the Bronx. In the 24 hours following the beginning of these outages, Con Edison has not provided an estimated restoration time for power outages. Con Edison has indicated that they hope to have an update on estimated restoration times by 6pm on August 5.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz issued the following statement in response to the Con Edison response:

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D - Bronx) said: “I am absolutely furious at yet another atrocious response from Con Edison to power outages in the Bronx. It is unacceptable to leave Bronxites in the dark – both literally and figuratively – about when they should expect to be able to operate essential medical equipment, refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, and more. I can appreciate that there may have been a lot of damage, but much of this destruction could have been prevented had Con Edison buried their aboveground power lines years ago. Instead, they chose to continue putting shareholder profits above the interests of people like us.

“As rumors abound that power may not be restored for 7-10 days in some cases, Con Edison’s only response is that people with medical equipment needs should contact the NYPD or try to be admitted to a hospital. This is an absurd contingency plan that fails to acknowledge the reality of our current circumstances. We are still in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and Con Edison wants their utility customers to go into a hospital because they weren’t prepared for a storm everyone saw coming? We have more shootings in New York than we have had in several decades, and Con Edison wants people to call the police because they haven’t come up with their own solution for people with medical needs? This is not a response; it is a deflection and Con Edison needs to take responsibility for their failures.

“I am glad that Governor Cuomo has asked the Public Service Commission to investigate Con Edison’s response to these outages along with other utility providers across New York State. It is evident that the energy status quo in New York is broken. Utility consumers need an independent advocate, like 43 other states and the District of Columbia already have, in addition to the Governor’s internal office and state utility regulators. We need to look seriously at shifting to publicly owned power where the people of New York would have greater influence on investments in resilience infrastructure such as buried power lines and grid redundancy. What we have now is unacceptable and people could be injured or worse due to Con Edison’s horrendous response to this storm.”

Legislation from Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz to create an independent Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate has been reintroduced in 2020 (A9572) after it was vetoed in 2019 (A1966, Veto No. 259 in 2019).

Utility customers can file complaints about their utility provider with the Public Service Commission online (http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/755C4F39A58C924C85257B2F0067FCA5?OpenDocument), by telephone (800-342-3377, Monday-Friday 8:30am to 4pm), or by mail (90 Church Street 4th Floor New York, NY 10007).

Con Edison customers can file a claim for spoiled food, medication, or other perishable items using the forms available here: https://www.coned.com/en/services-and-outages/claim-form