I live in NYC. I’ve listened to many storm recovery reports from government officials over the past several days. These things are usually incredibly diplomatic. Heroes are lavished with praise, and villains, be they public or private institutions, fellow officials, or private individuals, are seldom publicly criticized. The exception, however, seems to be the Long Island Power Authority, aka LIPA. Officials talk about LIPA like the black sheep of the family… a n’er-do-well… a screw-up.
Long Islanders, please tell us why LIPA has come to be such a public whipping boy.
Thanks all, in advance.
This is my 6th day without power. Almost everyone I know on Long Island lost power during this storm. We also had a multiday outage during the last storm. The LIPA system is incredibly fragile (no redundancy) and they are very slow in fixing anything.
Before LIPA there was LILCO (Long Island Lighting COmpany) that was ‘ousted’ as a public whipping boy in favor of LIPA, perhaps part of that sentiment remains.
Also their website for most towns including my own says “Estimated Restoration: Assessing Condition.” I think 6 days is enough time to complete “assessing” and to provide realistic ETAs if not power itself.
It’s not so much how LIPA has responded to this storm, but past ones. Last year Hurricane Irene, for example, which by and large missed the NYC metro area in terms of its potential for damage, saw many LI without power for 5-7 days while similarly affected people in nearby Queens were out for 1-2 days. The difference was especially stark near the Queens/Nassau border; Queens is a borough of NYC and serviced by Con Edison.
They still use computers that are programmed in COBOL and dial-up internet access.
I lived in NYC for 25 years, including a few on Long Island. Back then, Long Islanders loved to complain about LILCO, usually with justification. But there is one way to stop them from complaining about LIPA: Ask them how they feel about the Long Island Railroad . . . or better yet, the Long Island Expressway.