Pepco Customers Tell PSC Tales of Feeling Powerless After June Derecho

Bearing photos, frustration and rage, wry humor, harrowing tales of surviving record heat and even poetry, attendees railed against Pepco for more than four hours Tuesday night in Rockville during a hearing before members of the state’s Public Service Commission.

The hearing was the first of eight that state utility regulators have scheduled around the state to hear from the public about power companies’ performance after .

The storm left 483,639 Pepco customers without power, including 252,018 in Montgomery County and 158,210 in Prince George’s, . About 150 of those customers attended Tuesday's hearing.

Testimony from attendees at the hearing included photos and poetry.

Judith Koenick of Chevy Chase presented photos of trees that were left with odd shapes after pruning by Pepco.

“I don’t think you can find any arborist who is worth his or her grain of salt that can tell you that this is how you trim a tree,” she said, holding up three photos of trimmed trees that left audience members with a view chuckling. 

Among those who also testified at the hearing was a multiple sclerosis sufferer who said he and his wife ran up four days of hotel and meal expenses as they sought relief from triple-digit temperatures, which exacerbated his condition.

Other testimony came from Stacy Small-Lorenz who said she lost a three-day supply of breast milk for her 6-month-old baby and was forced to travel to Ohio to stay with family after being without power for six days.

PSC Chairman Douglas R. M. Nazarian and commissioners Lawrence Brenner and W. Kevin Hughes attended Tuesday’s hearing. Commissioners Harold D. Williams and Kelly Speakes-Backman were absent.

Marnie Shaul read a letter from the council of the Town of Somerset in Chevy Chase, of which she is vice president. The council made several recommendations, including reviewing Pepco’s communications technology, requiring that problematic power lines be buried and using fines against Pepco to establish a “surge reserve” corps of additionally trained service crews to respond to outages—a .

Customers expressed frustration about poor customer service during the outages and bafflement at how Pepco was recently granted a rate increase. 

In July, the  requested by Pepco. The increase will mean a $2.02 increase (1.69 percent) to the typical residential monthly bill.

Pepco revenue was down 17 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down 17 percent from a year ago, Washington Business Journal reported. That’s even before factoring in the June 29 storm, which won’t hit the utility’s bottom line until the third quarter, the Business Journal reported.

The utility’s revenue was $1.2 billion for the quarter, with $62 million net income, down from $94 million a year ago, the Business Journal reported. Pepco cited higher expenses for the losses.

The problem of restoration is that as Pepco’s system has grown, its workforce of line crews has not, said James Griffin, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1900, which represents 1,150 Pepco employees.

Griffin said he is the fourth consecutive IBEW Local 1900 president to report concerns about understaffing of line mechanics. He cited an October 1999 report to the PSC in which he said Pepco reported deploying 312 crews after a June 1996 storm and 318 after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

“These were Pepco crews, not contractors,” Griffin said. Since then, Pepco has tried to supplement its own crews with out-of-state contractors who come and go, don’t know the system and sometimes take several days to arrive.

In April, Pepco had 123 line mechanics and 21 trainees, Griffin said.

“Very simply, had there been an adequate number of Pepco line mechanics available today, compared to years past, Pepco would’ve been able to start repairing more of this storm’s damage sooner,” he said.

Andrew Kavounis, an 87-year-old World War II veteran, said the answer is not “beating to death” Pepco.

“What we should be concerned about is what’s wrong, not who’s wrong,” Kavounis said.

The biggest problem is the trees, he said, adding that only dwarf trees should be planted near power lines. Most people haven’t focused on such problems, he said.

“We haven’t established what’s wrong,” he said. “We’ve only said how much we’ve hurt.”