Con Edison Off To A Fast Start on Post-Isaias Restoration

Storm Isaias’s rampage through the New York City area lasted just a few hours, but caused significant damage to Con Edison’s overhead electric-delivery system. The storm’s gusting winds shoved trees and branches onto power lines, bringing those lines and other equipment down and leaving 257,000 customers out of power. The destruction surpassed Hurricane Irene, which caused 204,000 customer outages in August 2011.

The record for storm-related outages is 1.1 million caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and a Nor’easter that struck the next week.

The company has already restored service to more than 90,000 customers. But it is clear the restoration of all customers will take multiple days.

The company has brought in 220 additional line workers to restore service and had another 100 were scheduled to begin work Wednesday. Including tree trimmers and other workers, the company will have brought in more than 500 additional personnel to help with the arduous task of replacing poles, wires, transformers and other equipment.

Con Edison has begun to assess the damage from the storm and has begun a 24-7 effort to get customers back in service. Once the company has estimated times of restoration for customers, the company will share those times via its website and the media. Con Edison will work with local public works crews to clear hundreds of roads blocked by fallen trees and branches. Crews must de-energize wires that are entangled in the trees before they can cut the wires and have the trees removed.

Crews will give priority to making repairs that will provide power to the most customers quickly, then restore smaller groups and individual customers.

Con Edison sent text messages to customers in all its service areas except Manhattan, where the electric system is totally underground. The messages remind customers to be prepared and to report an outage by simply replying OUT to the text.