Commissioners: PECO Needs To Communicate Better

Two Haverford Township commissioners belittled PECO for what they say is the company’s lack of communication with township residents and officials.

In three separate emailed newsletters to residents on Monday, both Dan Siegel, 4th Ward Commissioner, and Steve D'Emilio, First Ward Commissioner and Township Vice President, said that PECO should be doing a better job of giving updated reports on repairs to residents and officials as work crews clean up the mess that Hurricane Irene left after it swept through the East Coast on Sunday.

In his Monday morning emailed newsletter, which the Haverford-Havertown Patch received from a reader Monday afternoon, D’Emilio explained to residents that the township cannot control how PECO performs and stated that Township Manager Larry Gentile has tried to contact PECO numerous times to get updates but has not received a response back.

In his newsletter, D’Emilio claimed that he saw PECO’s “poor” communications. 

“The communication with PECO is below poor. Yesterday a tree came down on the 200 block of Walnut Hill Lane around 10 a.m. knocking down lines and creating a small fire.  I called and reported it but PECO did not arrive until 9:30 p.m. (Sunday) night to cut the power off to have the tree removed and the line fixed.  They did not communicate this to the township and when they shut the power down, they placed additional residents without power.  Had they communicated this to us we could have sent out a message to the residents,” he wrote.

In his second emailed newsletter to residents, Siegel on Monday night wrote that he was “very dissatisfied” with what he sees as PECO’s lack of communications with the public, adding that this power outage is the longest he has ever experienced in the 25 years he has lived in Haverford Township.

Siegel’s first emailed newsletter was sent out and he stated that he would work with the township to address the communication concerns that the township and residents are having with PECO. Both newsletters were sent to Patch from Siegel.

In a phone interview with the Haverford-Havertown Patch Monday night, PECO spokesman Ben Armstrong addressed the commissioners’ accusations.

“We are working as safely as possible and are reaching out to local officials,” he said. “We are in constant communication (with local officials) as we move forward.”

Armstrong also mentioned that Hurricane Irene was one of the five worst storms in the company’s history and that half a million PECO customers in the Philadelphia region are still without power.

He said that PECO predicts that 90 percent of its customers will get their power back by Wednesday evening and the rest by the start of this weekend.

All available workers, 4,000 PECO employees, contractors and even workers as far away as Michigan, are working to restore power in the region, Armstrong said.

One of the bigger obstacles facing PECO workers Armstrong said are fallen trees that have knocked down power lines and utility poles. He explained that when replacing a broken utility pole, workers have to make sure that the transformer and other electrical components are re-installed and working properly.

“We are working as hard as possible,” he said, adding that the workers safety is the company’s “number one” concern. “We appreciate the customers’ patience.”

But in an email to Patch Monday night, Siegel said that PECO can be doing more.

“While PECO says that they are working as fast as they can, they can and should have done more. In particular, PECO has done an abysmal job of informing the public about the status of repairs, thereby making a very difficult situation far worse,” he wrote. “While a few other residents were successful in speaking with a person, and I fully realize the limitations the storm created, by not communicating and creating the impression of a stonewall, PECO has created an unbelievable amount of animus.”

D’Emilio expressed similar views in his newsletter.

“I fully understand that there are priorities with this storm and that is not the issue.  The issue I have is that they refuse to communicate with the township on power outages,” he stated. “… The communication with PECO is below poor. …”

D’Emilio has not yet responded to emailed questions sent by Patch late Monday night.

On Monday morning PECO spokeswoman Cathy Engel Menendez that 64,000 Delaware County residents were without power, but by 8:30 p.m. Monday that number dropped down to 22,000, Armstrong said. 

In Siegel’s Monday night newsletter, he stated that as of 4:16 p.m. Monday, 1,144 Haverford Township residents were without power. That number dropped down from Monday morning’s figure of 1,900 powerless residents, a figure that .

Both Siegel and D’Emilio stated they would like to have a future meeting with PECO to discuss how to improve communications.