FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

I am one of thousands of New Jersey JCP&L customers still without power as a result of Hurricane Irene. My house draws water from a well, so no electricity means no water. Still, my wife and I are among the more fortunate because we have the resources to stay in hotels until the power is restored. I say “hotels” (plural) because we check into and out of a hotel every day. We do this because we can’t get a human being on the phone from JCP&L to give an estimated as to when we can reasonably expect to have power again. We check out hoping that power will be back that day. We’ve had to stay in different hotels because on two occasions, the hotel we checked out of in the morning was fully booked later that day. We would have stayed checked in if somebody from JCP&L would actually give us personal and not computer automated information.

I sent JCP&L an email today asking for a projected power restoration date and got the following automated computer email response……….

“FirstEnergy has received your inquiry. We will respond to your message within 48 hours. If you need to contact us about this request, please reply to this e-mail, including the Request Number in the Subject line or call your FirstEnergy Contact Center. Thank you for visiting FirstEnergy's Web site.”

I then emailed Lee Solomon, President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. I wasn’t asking for any preferential treatment. I simply wanted him to add my situation to his file of displaced and dissatisfied JCP&L customers. He very quickly responded to me and many others who also contacted him. That email read as follows……….

“I received your e-mails regarding JCP&L’s performance, or lack thereof, during the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and at other times. I have reviewed all of them, and I am appalled by what you describe.

I am sorry that some of you inferred from the article in the Star Ledger today, that I was “apologizing” for JCP&L. As a former prosecutor, I am always reluctant to reach conclusions before the evidence is gathered, and reviewed. As a former judge, and as a Commissioner in a quasi-judicial position, I may not make a determination until the evidence is in, and a record established. Nevertheless, I have expressed your feelings, and mine to Tony Alexander, President and CEO, First Energy Corp. (the parent company), and Don Lynch, President, JCP&L.

While my main interest, at this time, is seeing to it that electric service is restored to all residents as quickly as possible, we will investigate and review thoroughly the conduct of all utilities, and their parent companies during this crisis. This process will be noticed, and public. If adequate preparations were not made in advance of the storm, or adequate resources not dedicated to deal with its aftermath, we will determine that and hold the utility(ies) accountable.”

I then received another email from JCP&L. This one finally provided a possible restoration date. It read as follows……..

“Thank you for utilizing FirstEnergy's Customer Care website for your account needs. Your electric outage has been reported. Unfortunately, due to the severity of storm damage throughout our service territory, we are unable to provide specific restoration times by address. We estimate that the majority of our customers will be restored by Friday night, September 2nd, with the remainder throughout the weekend.”

I get it that Hurricane Irene was a devastating natural disaster, but I believe that during and after such emergencies is when actual JCP&L human beings should be available to speak to the human beings who desperately need information. In my experience, the opposite has been true in this case.