Hey New Jerseyites… How’s that Red-Tape thingy working out for you now?
Piers Morgan made it a point today to angrily point fingers at Con-Edison power company officials about the length of time it is taking to restore power. He went on quite a rant with his pal, Trenton-NJ Mayor, Corey Booker….. However, given power company emergency disaster recovery teams being turned away by New Jersey officials because they are “non union” workers I wonder how Piers and his boy-pal Booker will spin that one? Jackasses !
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NEW JERSEY (WAFF) – The hurricane-ravaged east coast has been receiving north Alabama help, but crews from Huntsville Utilities learned they’ll be doing work in Long Island, New York instead of in New Jersey.
Crews from Huntsville, as well as Decatur Utilities and Joe Wheeler out of Trinity headed up there this week, but Derrick Moore, one of the Decatur workers, said they were told by crews in New Jersey that they can’t do any work there since they’re not union employees.
The crews that are in Roanoke, Virginia say they are just watching and waiting even though they originally received a call asking for help from Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
The crews were told to stand down. In fact, Moore said the crew from Trinity is already headed back home.
Understandably, Moore said they’re frustrated being told “thanks, but no thanks.”
At least Huntsville has now found someone who wants their help. (article with video)
Now weigh that bit of information against this article:
New Jersey – Leaving no doubt about who holds the real power, Gov. Chris Christie this week proposed a measure to hold the state’s power companies accountable for any slouching during outages from weather emergencies.
New Jersey has had more than a taste of destructive weather systems. The powerful one-two punch of Tropical Storm Irene’s relentless floods, followed just a few months later by a nor’easter bearing tons of snow, left hundreds of thousands of customers, by turns, sweltering in the dark and then shivering in the dark. Some struggled along without electricity – and without knowing when the lights would be back on — for a week.
The governor wants to raise the fines on utilities that fail to adequately respond to power outages. Christie wants to raise the penalty from $100 a day to $25,000 a day, with a ceiling of $2 million.
He also wants to make sure that utility companies cannot pass on any of the cost for those fines to consumers.
The push for legislation stems from the findings of a report commissioned by the state Board of Public Utilities that recommends more than 140 improvements. They include initiation of utility training and exercise drills, the establishment of “incident command centers” to coordinate restoration efforts and other suggestions for improving the utilities’ emergency deployment in the wake of major, statewide outages.
In response to the complaints of hundreds of residents in Mercer County and throughout the state, another recommendation calls for better communication from the electric distribution companies. Their “websites and social media need to provide more … outage details, estimated time of restoration and other restoration information,” states the report.
That simple change will come as a relief to customers such as those in Robbinsville, who say they’ve experienced decades of frustration with the Jersey Central Power and Light Co. and have no choice about the company that the delivers electricity. Robbinsville Mayor David Fried was so incensed over the lack of communication from JCP&L during the outages from Irene that he wanted to fire the utility in favor of PSE&G. (more)