by Timothy Rutt
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich delivered a spanking to Southern California Edison officials at this morning's Board of Supervisors meeting.
Edison officials attended the meeting at Antonovich's request to report on the utility's response to the windstorm, and to answer questions. Victoria Guttierez of Edison said that, as of this morning, about 9,000 customers remain without power.
Edison has deployed 276 crews, some from as far as Bakersfield, to the affected areas, and there were 100 crews working to restore power today, Gutierrez said.
"This storm has been unprecedented in our experience," she told the supervisors.
But Antonovich put Edison on the hot seat, particularly about how it informed customers. When Gutierrez said that it was impossible to notify each of Edison's 419,000 customers individually and they relied on the media to inform the public, Antonovich said that if there's no electricity, there's no media: "That's stupid," Antonovich said of the plan.
Antonovich also called into question Edison's method of determining if a customer had power by monitoring their smart meter -- especially since not all customers have the Internet-readable meters installed yet. Gutierrez said that the utility also had employees and volunteers go door-to-door in some affected areas.
Gutierrez said that Edison conducted regular disaster exercises, but Antonovich said that they should be working with local governments and safety agencies as part of those exercises. "You have an exercise and you fail when we have a disaster," Antonovich said. "It's like this is the first disaster we've ever had -- you're sending a wrong message to your customers -- you're sending a wrong message to your stockholders, that you're not a company who plans ahead."
Gutierrez told the supervisors that Edison was "entirely committed" to getting the lights back on, despite the unprecedented amount of damage.
