Dear Robert,The investigation is, in a sense, already underway.

As of yesterday, we have been advised that Con Ed expects full restoration of power on November 9th.

NYSEG has indicated they expect full restoration of power by November 7th.

Both of those, I am sure you would agree, are unacceptable.

I have been in contact with the management of both NYSEG and Con Ed, to express our displeasure at the inconvenience and danger this poses to our citizens.

Governor Cuomo has indicated as of yesterday that those restoration times may be shorter, but that will be on a town by town basis.  Gasoline has also run short, as a result the Coast Guard has opened the Port of New York again for deliveries and we expect that to take place hopefully sooner rather than later.

However it should be noted that those gasoline stations which do not operate on their own independent generators will not be able to pump gas until their regular power is restored.

This storm has had a catastrophic effect on the northeast and is many times worse than Hurricane Irene and the previous storms we experienced in the last several years.

Bottled water and dry ice will be available through each town and please contact your town police department to find out the times and locations for those distributions.

I have contacted the Governor’s office every day since this has happened in an attempt to get pressure put on Con Ed and NYSEG to expedite our road openings and power restoration.  As a result, our Governor has issued the sternest response and direction to both NYSEG and Con Ed indicating that their performance is unacceptable and falls short of any reasonable expectation for companies of this size.

He has further directed state interagency monitors and the Commissioners of the Public Service Commission to the headquarters of both facilities to personally oversee their performance and stands ready to employ the National Guard to take over for them if they are incapable of doing their own job.

Please understand that we as elected officials and your municipal officials are doing everything in our power to get these public utilities to do their job properly and while we understand that this is a catastrophic incident, their inability to deal with the problem is another example of their incapability of servicing the citizens of New York and will need to be dealt with in the very near future.

We apologize to you for this terrible inconvenience and please know that from the Governor’s office on down, everyone is outraged by the lack of service by both Con Ed and NYSEG, has expressed that outrage to them every day, in no uncertain terms and will continue to push them to do their job properly for the sake of our citizens.

Respectfully yours,

ROBERT J. CASTELLI
Member of Assembly

P.S. Although both my office and home are currently without power, we are currently able to check my email remotely from the Emergency Operations Centers in each town. As information becomes available, we will update this