LIPA success marred by communication lack

One of the largest and most expensive power restoration efforts in Long Island history saw more than 500,000 LIPA customers get their power back in less than a week after Tropical Storm Irene -- no small feat by most measures.

So how was it that the response seemed only to reinforce the image of the Long Island Power Authority as a public piñata, caught between the outside contractors who do the work and an angry customer base demanding results?

By 6 p.m. Sunday, LIPA and National Grid made good on a pledge to restore all but 1 percent of their customers who had lost power. But as complaints poured in from ratepayers who said they were left in the dark by LIPA's overwhelmed communication systems, public officials were sharpening their swords.

"Totally disgusted with LIPA's performance" state Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) said on Friday after receiving "hundreds of calls and emails to get the power turned back on."

On Saturday he called for postponement of the contract for management of the local grid until National Grid and LIPA's performance is reviewed and a permanent chief executive is appointed. LIPA has been run by interim chief executive Michael Hervey for the past year.

"Not good enough," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said, ordering National Grid, which manages the electric system for LIPA, to "get the power on now" or possibly face loss of its $2.3-billion contract.

Even LIPA supporters were miffed. "I've always been a defender of LIPA, but I was very disappointed this time," said Smithtown Director of Public Safety John Valentine.

He said LIPA officials ignored his pleas to clear debris that left two dozen families stranded with "severe safety issues."

Calls for investigation

Several entities, including LIPA itself, are calling for public hearings and investigations of the authority's storm performance. On Saturday, chairman Howard Steinberg, who himself lost power for three days, said the board would launch a review as soon as this week. But he but stopped short of saying LIPA should delay decisions about its future direction, given that the contract with National Grid expires at the end of 2013.

Michael Fragin, a former LIPA trustee who pushed the authority to improve communications and coordination with local governments after a devastating March 2010 nor'easter, said the authority appears not to have learned expensive lessons.

"A lot of the improvements that should have alleviated these problems haven't come into service yet," he said.

LIPA in the past year spent millions to improve an outage website to provide estimated restoration times -- but a decentralized restoration network rendered it useless. Customers went days without knowing when or if crews would arrive.

LIPA lost access to crucial information when National Grid decentralized restoration crews, effectively creating 30 separate, nearly independently run repair utilities at substations. The structure speeds repairs, but vastly slows the flow of information.

Crews in the field weren't feeding information back to LIPA about work they were assigned or completed -- reporting that's normally logged immediately into computers.

"We need to put more computer capability in place to stay on our normal operating mode with customer restoration," Hervey said.

LIPA also spent the past year honing its outbound phone system, but most customers didn't receive an automated response call until Friday, after many already had their power restored. Some didn't get a call at all.

Tens of thousands of inbound calls last Sunday were lost, Hervey said, because of compatibility issues with Verizon's network and AT&T cellphones -- a claim Verizon challenged Friday.

In a word, LIPA was overwhelmed by Tropical Storm Irene -- not so much by floodwaters, wind, and toppling trees, but by the information demands of an already testy customer base. LIPA for years has ranked near the bottom in the nation in customer satisfaction surveys.

Ratepayers such as Ken Waldhof of Westbury, without power for five days, suggested LIPA shouldn't expect higher customer ratings anytime soon.

LIPA "has no clue of how to handle their customer service," he wrote from a smartphone Thursday night. "Don't make promises that you will call with updates when there's no intention to."

For all the outrage, the week could have been much worse.

After that wind-whipped Sunday a week ago, good weather was with LIPA all week long, with temperatures mild enough to keep air conditioners off and crews on overtime.

More than 1,000 outside utility workers were on the way to Long Island before the storm hit. After it did, and more than 5,000 significant damage sites were discovered, a force of more than 3,500 field workers, the largest ever amassed on Long Island, got to work. In all, some 7,500 people worked to restore power. All but 90 of them were outsiders under contract to LIPA.

Crew costs mount up

With "several million" dollars a day in labor, lodging and food costs, and many workers expected to stay up to two weeks more, it's no stretch to say Irene will ring up some of the most expensive storm tabs in LIPA's history, perhaps surpassing $100 million, one expert said. Last year's nor'easter cost $68 million -- 75 percent of which was covered by federal disaster relief funds. LIPA is hopeful Irene will be covered as well, Hervey said.

The bitter taste left after Irene involved not just being left in the dark literally, but also figuratively. Long Islanders followed LIPA trucks to substations, parking lots and staging grounds, snapping pictures of idle trucks or demanding to know when their juice would return. They bombarded LIPA with emails, faxes and phone calls, which surpassed 700,000 by last Thursday.

They showed a sudden interest in LIPA's Facebook page, Efficiency Long Island, mostly to castigate the power company for the dearth of information about their restoration.

Charles McCormick, who owns School of Fish Swim and Scuba in Rocky Point, became so frustrated by LIPA's failure to respond as the Labor Day weekend approached that he followed a LIPA truck into a substation. Angry workers chased him out.

Two days later his wife drove to LIPA's Riverhead walk-in customer service center. The sign on the door, he said, topped a week of conflicting messages and dead ends.

"It said, 'We are closed to better serve you,' " McCormick said. "Wow. Who knew? The office staff is now manning the utility buckets."

Alan M. Newman made several calls to LIPA customer service during the six days the power was out in his Wantagh neighborhood.He recalled one recorded message saying call volume had overloaded the reporting system and he should call back later.

"I think LIPA has an awful lot of work to do to get its reputation back," Newman said. "It's going to be many years. Heads should roll."

With Keith Herbert