Print
Jul 23, 2006 5:00 pm US/Eastern
Bloomberg: Con Ed Doing Their Best
ASTORIA (CBS) ―
Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference Sunday morning to provide an update to the power crisis that left many Queens residents without electricity for a week.
"Con Ed workers are driving throughout Queens to visually survey areas of power outage and to determine how accurate their estimates are. They believe these numbers are accurate," he said.
The mayor conceded that "It doesn't sound like it makes any sense in this day and age that that's the way you'd find out who is without power."
However he added, "but the truth of the matter is the only two ways they have to find out is if you call them, call 311 and we switch you to them, or if they drive down the street and don't see any lights."
Con Ed still believes 25-thousand customers are without power, and Bloomberg stressed that a customer could be an entire building, so it is possible that "well over 100-thousand people could be affected by this."
The mayor claimed the utility restored service to roughly 50 percent of the customers affected.
Con Edison is also receiving help from companies in New Jersey, Ohio, and Boston. The mayor also said that Governor Pataki offered to send any help the state can provide.
Among the utility's response to the blackout was to install generators in various affected buildings.
"If you really want to do something, just walk up to a Con Ed worker and say: 'Thanks. We appreciate everything that you're doing'," Bloomberg said.
The mayor believes the utility's response is on the right track, but still has alot to do. "We're making progress I think. I don't think anybody should be satisfied. I think for those of you who have not experienced going for a long period of time without power, it's probably hard to imagine the inconvenience, the discomfort and the frustration that one feels after a period of time."
Nevertheless, Bloomberg said, "But the city's response, I think, has been as good as we can."
"Our main objectives are to provide safety, and to help Con Ed get us out of this situation, and then get us back to figuring out what happened," he said.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
