County Residents Sound Off About BGE Customer Service at Town Hall Meetings

If county residents are upset about the pace that Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) restored their electricity in the aftermath of tropical storms Irene and Lee, they themselves may be partly to blame, according to the power company.

BGE relies on phone calls from residents reporting outages to know where to send crews out for repairs, a liaison for the company told residents at a town hall meeting in Davidsonville on Thursday. If residents don’t call, the company has no way of knowing the power is out.

“Outage reporting relies on people calling in,” said Bonnie Johansen, BGE/Constellation Energy liaison to the county, at the meeting. It was hosted by state Sen. Ed Reilly (R-Crofton) and the Davidsonville Ruritan Club.

“The more people calling in helps give information about how widespread the outage is. Is it one house, one side of the street, the whole neighborhood, the whole city?” Johansen said.

She added that customers should then call each day.

“Sometimes they [techs in the field] will make a repair, and think that it has hooked up 1,000 houses. But, a transformer or a fuse down the line has a problem and only 50 people are back on,” Johansen said.

In that case, BGE doesn’t know that all 1,000 people are not back on.
“We truly don’t know,” she said. “People should call in once a day until they are restored.”

The Davidsonville meeting was one of eight town hall meetings BGE customer service managers have held to meet with customers and hear complaints since the summer’s tropical storms knocked out power to thousands of residents.
BGE used the forum to apologize to customers and explain how, exactly, their customer service and outage maps work.

Johansen said that critical services, hospitals, police, and other necessary support systems are brought back on line first—especially during a storm with widespread outages. Johansen added that once BGE gets “smart meters” in place workers will be able to use the technology to spot outages. Until then, it is a people-generated system.

At Thursday’s meeting some residents questioned why line maintenance and tree-cutting weren’t more of a priority for BGE. BGE countered that under the law, the company is not permitted to remove more than 25 percent of a tree.
“Is it more important to have a tree than to have power?” an attendee who identified himself as “Joe” said, suggesting that Reilly propose a bill to give BGE wider latitude in taking down entire trees.

Reilly said that his suggestion was “duly noted,” while Johanson said that there are more bills in the General Assembly with support to leave trees standing.
But she said that BGE can work with homeowners to get rid of nuisance trees near power lines with their permission. Otherwise the area is on a four-year cycle for trimming, with spot trims conducted as necessary.

One customer complained that expenses incurred due to a power surge were not reimbursed by BGE, which frustrated the homeowner since $4,000 of damage was done to items in his home.

"Of course it's natural to call when your power's out just to see if they're planning on turning it back on," said Pasadena resident Carl Logan. "But you feel a little helpless waiting. It doesn't surprise me that people get frustrated."

Chris Reif, supervisor for field reliability and investigations for BGE said that the compensation tariff—negotiated by the Public Service Commission—does not require BGE to compensate homeowners except in very specific circumstances.
Johansen added that this extends to food spoilage due to power outages—something BGE doesn’t pay for.

Johansen said that special needs customers are given priority service during a typical outage. She said that if there are specific medical needs that require electricity, those homes can be identified in the BGE database and given priority service.

Customers with medical issues need to contact customer service to get a form signed by a physician. Once the form is returned, those houses are highlighted in the database.

Johansen noted that during storm recovery with widespread outages, those homes may not get priority service, but at most times they would be dealt with first.

Johansen also wanted customers to know that BGE maintains light poles, once the county or a developer installs them.

“Simply go online. There is a place on our website where you can either put the road and the nearest intersection of the pole, or if you know it, the pole number,” Johansen said.