Full Notification

Dear neighbors,

Thank you for your patience as we continue to navigate the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias. According to ConEd, there are currently 68 Village of Pelham customers without power. We started with more than 450 outages so we’re making progress, but this is certainly cold comfort for our neighbors who are still in the dark. We have been pushing for quicker progress throughout the weekend, and we’ll continue that advocacy until every Village resident has had their power restored.

As we head into this new week, here are the priorities we’re pursuing: 

First, we’re pushing ConEd to dedicate a line crew to Pelham until all local work is completed. We’ve received word this morning that we will have at least one restoration crew on the ground today, but that's not good enough. ConEd’s response has been abysmal and most of the progress we’ve made so far has been the direct result of interventions made by us at the local level and advocacy done by our county and state representatives (Assemblywoman Paulin has been particularly effective). ConEd’s primary deficiency has been their inability to efficiently coordinate the work required by the various crews from ConEd, Verizon and Altice. Throughout this ordeal, workers from each of these companies have arrived on scene without accurate, up-to-date information on the status of a location. We do a much better job tracking the progress made at each location and have been trying to fill the information gap by speaking directly with workers on the ground and providing the information they need. We’re more than happy to continue filling that gap, but it is immensely difficult when the response is understaffed and crews arrive sporadically. There will be much more to say about this when we’re on the other side of this emergency.

Our second priority is making sure that Altice and Verizon are proactive about doing their own work. Once power is restored, many of our residents will discover they still don’t have cable, internet or phone service. Almost everyone is working from home right now and these services are essential. Verizon and Altice should be ready to restore their services the moment people have power and we are pressing this point with them.

We’ll continue advocating for full restoration as quickly as possible. If you haven’t already, please be sure to sign up for Nixle alerts through the Village website as this has been the primary way we’ve been communicating important information. Additionally, if you have an outage, please make sure it’s recorded with ConEd. Customers can report power outages or service problems by calling 1-800-75-coned or online at www.coned.com (where you can also view service restoration information and the outage map). If you’re having trouble getting your outage registered, please email Administrator Small at [email protected] and we’ll make sure your address is shared with our municipal liaison.

If you’ve been without power for 48 hours or more since Thursday, I encourage you to fill out a claims form to recover any losses you may have related to spoiled food, medication, or perishable commercial merchandise. A link to the form can be found on the Village website here: https://www.pelhamgov.com/home/news/con-edison-tropical-storm-isaias-claim-information

As a final note, our Public Works department will be picking up residential storm debris all week. Please be sure to bring any brush, downed branches or tree limbs to the curb by Friday, August 14th and we’ll pick them up as soon as we can. 

Thanks again, Pelham. Looking forward to having this behind us soon.

Chance