Con Ed work crews have been bolstered by 2,400 members of “mutual aid” teams from around the country who are putting in 16-hour days to restore power.
“This is what we signed up for. We know people are trying to get their lights on,” said Glenn Nicholas, an Entergy crew supervisor from New Orleans who was deployed to downtown Manhattan yesterday.
It had been rough living for the 850-man Entergy team, which hails from Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Crews from Southern California Edison have been having the rare experience of donning winter jackets to help restore power in Westchester and in Bergen County in New Jersey.
“They are doing all the electrical poles and replacing downed wires,” said Dan Chung, part of the 125-man crew that was airlifted by the Air Force last week.
At least they got to stop for a slice.
“The pizza is a hell of lot better. You guys know your pie,” Chung said.
Con Ed has erected base camps at the Queens Hall of Science, Citi Field and Miller Field on Staten Island. There are two more camps at the FDR State Park in Yorktown Heights and at Rye Playland in Rye.
“We got an army out there,” said Con Ed veep John Miksad. “We are feeding those folks at 4:30 in the morning and giving them job packages and getting them out.”
Con Ed hopes to get the lights back for the “vast majority” of people by the weekend, but that wasn’t good enough for Gov. Cuomo.
“God never said New York shall have the utilities forever and Con Ed is the utility and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Cuomo warned. “If you can’t provide the services, we will provide another vendor who can.”