Queens, New York - The overlooked part of the story


How much of the problem came from the State of New York?
By now you've probably heard about ConEd's massive screwup that has left thousands without power during a heat wave. If you haven't, I can fix that.

Con Ed's top boss apologized yesterday to the 100,000 Queens residents suffering without power for a sixth consecutive frustrating day. But in his first public comments on the blackout, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Burke said he was still in the dark about what caused the outage or when service would be fully restored.

The information gap further enraged elected leaders and exhausted residents who have lambasted the power giant for initially underestimating the problem and then being too slow to fix it.

"I understand the frustration of the residents of Queens who have experienced the power outages this week, and I apologize for the inconvenience they have suffered," Burke said at a Con Ed facility in Long Island City.

But he called the blackout, which began Monday, "an extraordinary event" and spent the remainder of his 20-minute news conference explaining technical steps being taken to restore the damaged network and defending the company's response to the crisis.

ConEd really messed up, there is no doubt about that. I'm pretty sure that they should be liable for some severe damages. But there is one part of this story that keeps getting overlooked.

ConEd is a monopoly, granted public utility status by the State of New York.

If there had been more than one power company, there would not be as much suffering because customers would have had a choice. ConEd might have felt competitive pressure to do some preventive troubleshooting BEFORE it hit the fan.

Just something to think about.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - July 23, 2006 at 05:13 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved