Now LIPA’s chief has something in common with thousands of Long Island residents — they’re out of power.
Interim CEO Mike Hervey — who still has 45,000 total customers without electricity after Hurricane Sandy — will step down at the end of this year.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees I have accepted his resignation, with regret,” LIPA chairman Howard Steinberg said today.
Hervery resigned the same day Gov. Cuomo authorized a commission to “investigate the response, preparation, and management of New York’s power utility companies with major storms hitting the state over the past two years, including Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, and Tropical Storm Lee,” according to a statement.
The commission can issue subpoenas and examine witnesses under oath.
LIPA customers aren’t the only ones still in the dark.
Neighborhoods and buildings across the region are still without electricity more than two weeks after Hurricane Sandy struck — and utility companies are sticking some of the blame on powerless residents.
About 424,000 customers in the Rockaways, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, Staten Island, the Lower East Side, Midland Beach, Coney Island, Nassau, Suffolk and New Jersey still need juice, utility officials said today.
About 39,000 of those outages, mostly ConEd and LIPA customers, could get power — but an electrician needs to inspect their home equipment first.
It’s a slow and confusing process.
Richard Aloi, 57, a Staten Island landlord, had power restored to two of his Midland Avenue buildings yesterday, but not before he shelled out $400 to have an electrician inspect four meters that he said were not even touched by water.
“They’re afraid to get sued — they misled me on everything!” Aloi said.
In Manhattan, Knickerbocker Village residents are still freezing as they wait for electricity to get turned back on because of flooding in the basement.
“Some days it’s warmer outside than it is in the house,” said Debbie Felice, 43, an MTA station supervisor, who lives in the Lower East Side facility.
“It’s like we’ve been forgotten about over here. It’s tough trying to get up and go to work when it’s freezing in the house and there’s no hot water there’s no heat. I still have no electricity in the apartment either. It’s terrible.”
ConEd has 4,000 customers waiting to have their homes inspected.
And those numbers grow considerably when ConEd factors in affected public housing complexes where a “customer” can be hundreds of residents.
As of Sunday, 30,000 NYCHA residents didn’t have power — though that number has dropped since then.
Still, a ConEd executive declared today that, “We essentially have power up in all areas.
“The only issues that exist now is if customers are able to take the power from us,” spokesman Bob McGee said.
As for LIPA, 10,000 people in Nassau and Suffolk still have outages, and another 35,000 in the Rockaways, Nassau and Suffolk need inspections.
And in New Jersey, only 78 percent of 1.7 million PSE&G customers have power restored — 375,000 remain in the dark due to downed lines.
Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the city will open seven centers in Far Rockaway, Gravesend, Coney Island, Staten Island, Red Hook, Breezy Point and Throggs Neck-Pelham to connect residents and businesses with financial, health, environmental, nutritional FEMA, and residential services.
“There are a lot of residents who are going to be without power for a long time. Rather than complain about it or eve write about it, we’re trying to do something about it,” Bloomberg said.
As for NYCHA houses, he said they “see the finish line” for power.
And Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a $20 billion initiative to protect the city from storm surges, with a sea wall, bulkheads, dunes, wetlands and flood gates.
Additional reporting by David Seifman, Sally Goldenberg, Liz Sadler and Kieran Crowley