Pols to LIPA: What happened?

State Sen. Carl Marcellino on Thursday opened a senate investigations committee meeting on the communications breakdown after Tropical Storm Irene with a question to LIPA and National Grid officials: "What the hell happened?"

The hearing is scheduled to find answers to the "serious lack of planning and communication" during the weeklong power restoration.

Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), reiterating the "F" grade he gave the companies during the effort, said, "If Donald Trump were chairman of your board, he'd say, 'You're fired.' "

All senators gave credit to repair crews that restored power to 523,000 in a week.

LIPA chief Michael Hervey said that while he believed the authority's response to Irene was "swift, strong and on par" with regional utilities, "we also understand customers' frustration" with the lack of real-time restoration information during the storm.

He said the authority had reviewed its performance several times. He said although the effort to restore power was "reasonable, appropriate and achieved the desired goal" of bringing back power in a week, he said LIPA will identify shortfalls and correct them.

John Bruckner, president of National Grid's Long Island electric operations, reiterated the remarks, calling the restoration effort an "immense undertaking."

He thanked customers for their patience and said there will "always be those who question and critique" performance, but he commended workers for the "successful restoration effort."

But State Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr. unleashed on both utility officials for "patting yourselves on the back."

"I think you both failed miserably," Fuschillo said, raising his voice. "You failed!"

Fuschillo (R-Merrick) noted Hervey had a news conference in his district two days after the storm, but outages there continued.

"Everybody left and nothing happened," Fuschillo fumed.

Under questioning by Marcellino (R-Syosset), Hervey noted that Bruckner "takes the lead" in the restoration effort, "but it's under the direction of LIPA," which has only 90 employees.

Sen. Jack Martins took issue with the utilities' failure to work fully with town and village road crews, with crews waiting for wires to be de-energized so trees could be removed.

"A common complaint was there wasn't a LIPA truck or National Grid crew to be found, and no way to reach out to anyone to coordinate," said Martins (R-Mineola).

Marcellino also took issue with communication and coordination.

"The plan didn't work -- there's no other way to put it," he said. "Your website was a disgrace. It didn't update," instead telling customers crews were assessing outages "for three days." He said the system "needs a complete overhaul."

Bruckner said the utilities had to balance the job of dealing with about 7,000 downed wires against the need to restore large numbers of customers by fixing transmission wires. The utilities also didn't have as many high-voltage line crews during the first two days of the storm.

Marcellino asked why two critical-care nursing homes in Suffolk were without power for four days.

"Because they are a high priority doesn't mean getting them back on quickly," because in some cases they are at the distant end of the power distribution grid, Hervey said.

LaValle asked about the tree-trimming and system strengthening budget before the storm and was told it has remained consistent at about $20 million a year. He then questioned whether the operation's problems highlighted by the storm didn't point to the larger issue of LIPA's future structure.

"If you're operating in a failed model, then no matter what you do, you're going to have a failed operation," he said.

The meeting in Mineola is being broadcast live on the committee's website: nysenate.gov/event/2011/sep/22/public-hearing-investigations-and-government-operations-meeting.