12th July, 2007
Playwrite27 (N.)
It was reported today, in northeastern New York state, that the state of New York is considering slapping National Grid with a large fine.
This all stems from a massive power outage earlier this week, which National Grid is blaming on severe thunderstorms that blew through the area, knocking out power lines in several key locations.
According to a National Grid spokeswoman, the company did a planned shut down of the power to a local city, to avoid having an overload to their system. The problem though, lies with the fact that no one at National Grid said a word to anyone about the planned outage.
And that left leaders of the city of Troy, New York--the city directly effected by this power cut--both angry and concerned. Troy, located on the eastern banks of the Hudson River, just north of the capital city of Albany, has a population of 50,000--many of whom are elderly. The city has two hospitals and a large number of senior housing complexes. This occurred during a sweltering heat wave, with temperatures hovering around 90 F (32 C) accompanied with steamy tropical-like humidity.
Despite not knowing about the planned outage, city leaders acted quickly, setting up cooling centres and working with local grocery store chain, Price Chopper, to provide ice and bottled water to those who needed it. Even so, the city's fire department and ambulance crews were kept busy, responding to medical emergencies at several of the senior complexes.
The New York State Public Service Commission, which oversees utilities in the state, will be investigating the planned outage, and has not ruled out levying fines on National Grid, for not notifying city leaders of their intent. Local and state lawmakers are also looking into National Grid's policies, and promise to see that changes are made in regards to how planned power outages are handled by New York state power companies.
Other parts of the area were shut down as well. On Tuesday, in the north country, a thunderstorm took out 13 power lines at the Spier Falls Dam on the Hudson River, in Moreau, NY, causing a low voltage situation, which can cause damage to home appliances and computer systems. National Grid reacted by shutting down power to parts of three counties: Saratoga, Washington and Warren. Power was cut to much of New York's north country, including parts of the cities of Saratoga Springs--a popular resort city of 26,000, in Saratoga County, and the City of Glens Falls-which has a population of 15,000, in Warren County, and the small city of Hudson Falls, in Washington County. Power was restored to most parts of this area fairly quickly.
National Grid is defending these planned outages as a necessary evil, to prevent even worse outages. However, state and local authorities are taking a dim view of National Grid's procedures, saying there was a massive communications failure on the utility's part. National Grid took over operations in many parts of the state recently, buying out the former "local" power company, Niagara-Mohawk, which had served statewide customers for over 50 years. National Grid is based in the U.K.
