They’re the highest power.
Mayor Bloomberg yesterday lauded Con Ed’s performance in restoring power after Superstorm Sandy slammed the city, proclaiming the utility as tops in the nation.
“I keep saying this, and everybody wants to shoot me for it,” the mayor said. “If you look at the national statistics, this happens to be virtually the best utility company in the country.”
Eileen Costello, 47, a resident of the hard-hit Gerritsen Beach section of Brooklyn, agreed with the mayor — to a point.
“It was a slow effort,” she said, “but they were being ultra-cautious. I think their response is pretty good.”
But a neighbor still waiting for his power to return offered complaints, not compliments.
“Con Ed came and cut my meter and took it out,” recalled Fei Fang. “They didn’t give me any instructions for the next step. We have no computer, no phone. It’s very hard. How do we know what to do next?”
A spokesman for the utility said it had returned power to all customers except some 1,300 whose systems are still too damaged to receive electricity.
About half of those are homes on Staten Island.
On a related front, the mayor shot down the idea of using federal aid to buy inflatable plugs to seal off subway tunnels in case of another next mega-storm.
“I think a legitimate question is, if this happens only once every 110 years and if they did get it back as quickly as they did, is that a good use of our money?” Bloomberg asked.
“You’re probably better off taking those dollars and expanding the subway out to where people now live compared to where they did 100 years ago when the subways were built.”
Not that the mayor is rejecting the federal money.
“But the governor is right,” he added, referring to Gov. Cuomo’s request for storm mitigation funds. “There are things you can do.”