Pepco officials are standing by their decision to wait until the morning after a late January storm to seek additional help after already knowing they were short-handed. The utility company has been whipped by politicians since the Jan. 26 blast of heavy, wet snow that left more than 200,000 Pepco customers without power, some for as long as five days. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley called out the company’s failings in his State of the State address, and other elected officials have piled on with their outrage. In response, Pepco officials have made the rounds from hearings held by Maryland utility watchdogs, to the Montgomery County Council, and on Thursday morning, to the D.C. Public Service Commission. At each stop, they’ve issued apologies for not doing a better job, but on Thursday they also stuck by the timing of their requests for help.
“We wait to see if there’s outages before we make a call [for assistance],” Pepco Vice President David Velazquez told the city’s public service commission. He added, “No utility would release crews to come to the aid of another until the size and impact of a storm was known.”
Baltimore Gas & Electric has said it put out calls for assistance before an 8:30 p.m. regional call, when Pepco made its first request for help. BGE had 400 extra workers on hand by 5 p.m. the day of the storm and its customers back online within 48 hours.
On the 8:30 call, Pepco asked electric companies in the mid-Atlantic area for 200 repair trucks, Velazquez said. When the call ended, only half of the request had been filled. Pepco then waited until the following morning to ask Southern states for the other 100 trucks. North Carolina complied, but the extra hands didn’t arrive for more than 24 hours after the power first went out.
Velazquez told the city’s utility commission that he couldn’t comment on what other companies did.
“You can make the call [for assistance] in advance of customer outages,” Velazquez said, “but there’s not a lot of purpose.”
The D.C. commission has been attacked for being in the power company’s pocket. Some say the watchdog group has done little to hold the utility accountable, particularly in recent years as Pepco’s ability to restore power has waned.
On Thursday, though, commissioners had tough words for Pepco officials.
“Your performance was unequivocally unacceptable and our ratepayers are feeling it,” said Commissioner Lori Murphy Lee. “They are irate, we are irate. Pepco has to stop being reactive and start being proactive.”
