LIPA Class Action Suit

If a class action suit is pursued and won, won't it ultimately lead to even higher rates?

What's the point?

Seems to me that we need to throw out he old model,and establish a new one. Just my .02.

-Steve
 
Articles say payment would come from insurance.
I say use the money to put wires underground!
 
You can put all the lines underground - the question is, are you willing to pay the billions that it will cost?

The only ones who make out in a class action suit are the lawyers.
 
It’s an interesting situation. I wonder if anyone other than the lawyers will ever get anything out of it. There certainly hasn’t been any shortage of criticism of LIPA management in the past few weeks. Much of which may be deserved; but right about now the most dangerous place in the world to be is between a politician and a camera or microphone. Personally, I was kind of ticked off listening to their news conferences on a transistor radio and hearing them thank each other for all they were doing while I sat huddled freezing with my wife and kids in the dark. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it was that all of these individuals did that warranted such redundant high praise. I guess it’s true that no good politician lets a disaster go to waste. What I haven’t heard from any of them yet is that LIPA is controlled by a board, or group of individuals, that is appointed by politicians. As with most positions filled by local politicians, I’m sure that the board is comprised of unqualified and otherwise unemployable people.
What the Governor (who I voted for BTW) hasn’t said is that his Daddy was the main catalyst behind LIPA and that he himself is actually responsible for appointing the majority of the members on the board. Maybe he should have taken a closer look at things and made some changes after Hurricane Irene last year.
The only politician that I saw display any initiative or intestinal fortitude was Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. His decision to tell LIPA that his residents were not going to wait for them to get inspection reports for each individual house in hard hit areas and the use of Suffolk County Police to gain access to LIPA sub stations was proactive. It didn’t take long for others to jump on that bandwagon.
What I would like to see is an independent commission set up on a federal level to take a look at what went wrong, who is responsible, and what needs to be done to minimize the impact that severe weather has on our apparently antiquated and fragile system.
 
Anyone read the Newsday article this Saturday about... U-N-I-O-N-S ? just sayin'...
 
As a LIPA customer here is my take.

LIPA sucks at customer service/information. People don't have any idea what is involved in getting the power back on.

The fact that so many are without electricity is a function of the storm - see Florida. We are a bit spoiled in thinking that this should be rectified quickly.

The cost to make the system resistant to this kind of disaster would result in significant rate increases in an area where rates are already the highest in the country.

LIPA labor costs are already high and that is why they are limited to the amount of staff they have on hand.

The politicians are no help and only fan the flames.

That said, LIPA should have an ongoing program where cables are buried whenever a street is opened for some other reason. Then incremental progress would be made at reasonable cost. That requires the politicians get on that page. Pass a law that requires any contractor who opens up a street to cooperate with the utlitiy to bury the cables, etc.

Lastly, I hate to sound unsympathetic but if you are in an area that is still under mandatory evacuation, please don't complain that you are freezing and still don't have power because you aren't supposed to be there anyway.

Again, I think this is a situation of mis-information. In areas where there is limited visible damage, there may be power transmission issues or things the customer doesn't see.

Also the same people who are yelling on TV would be yelling louder if they simply flipped the switch and their houses burned down.
 
How about, instead of burying the lines (which would be a joke... they can't even bury a new sewar line near my neighborhood without taking a year to do it), they CUT DOWN the trees underneath the lines, and very close by, in its entirety. Maybe they could use the massive amount of firewood to generate some electricity in these incinerator plants.

Buried lines also create problems when areas are flooded.

The tree "trimming" they currently have makes the trees look ridiculous anyway, and how it prevents the tree from ripping down the lines when it does fall is beyond me. I know there will be people complaining we need the trees for clean air, beauty, water absorption etc., but we can't have it both ways. New trees can be planted, that are in no danger of ever interfering with power lines, which will serve some of that environmental need.

And to keep it "Boating related"... The removal of certain trees will help when boats are being stored on the side of some peoples homes from getting branches or sap on the canvas or being towed down residential streets, no branches to hit or rub up against.

How about that?
 
Cracked me up when I bought my house, town made builder plant trees on the curb line. Of course where the wires run. Then Irene took down those trees and the wires!

What we need is better planning at the town, county, and state levels! Tree trimming helps. Plant bushes, not trees. In town where I work in Michigan they plant flowers by curb, looks great!
 
LIPA is way too caught up in the politics of their own hierarchy. Way too much in fighting. In so far as evacuation area, we didn't see a drop on our property.....the issue was a broken pole....of which they "ran out".....

I work for another comm company so pretty much have some insight into this.....the ultimate fix was to use one of the out of state trucks to hold up the pole (left the truck there) after the 11th day.....

LIPA did a rotten job....the what exactly to the highest rates in the country buy for us if it's not reliability?.....

If I paid Florida rates, maybe I'd be a little more empathetic........

LIPA blew it...period.
 
LIPA is a government power authority and that says it all!! When the government runs anything it will cost three times as much and be the least likely to do anything right. I agree Cuomo senior is responsible for present LIPA mess. When everyone said in the beginning if the wires were buried there wouldn't have been so much damage I also pointed out that flooding would have ruined everything buried. I agree Steve Bellone has done a good job but as with all these elected officials isn't it their job? Why are they always so quick to point out what a great job they're doing? My thanks go out to all the volunteers and people from all over the country who rushed here to help!!
Rob
 
Mark,
I totally agree buddy!!!!!

Also, here is some food for thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In my earlier years I worked and actually built out a cable TV infrastructure in Lynbrook and Lawrence (Adams Russell) which is now CableVision. Lynbrook for the most part is a very middle class area, Lawrence on the other hand is is predominantly wealthy.Lynbrook had overhead cables, Lawrence had underground. There were way more outages in Lawrence than Lynbrook. We live on an island with a 3 to 5 foot water table on the south shore. The littlest storm would flood the vaults that held the cable tv equipment, forget about a hurricane.

My point here is this, and my point is based on real life experience on underground vs overhead cables. On the south shore of LI, underground is not the answer, not the answer by any stretch of the imagination in reality, it is far worse than overhead cables.
 
I agree that the current state of power transmission/planning/customer service is deplorable. That said I lived in Westchester Cty from '68 to '82. They (Con Ed) did not seem to allow trees to grow up under power lines and we had ice storms and winter storms MUCH more severe than LI because it is 5-10 degrees colder on average than LI and no ocean to moderate temps as LI does. We lost power only during the north east black out of ''77, never during the ice storms or very frequent blizzards. So the system they have here can be improved by getting rid of tree under wires. Don't like how it looks.. Too bad thats what has to be done. As for me I learned long ago (Gloria 1985) not to depend on govt etc, ran my genny (5000 watts did fine) 12 days. Next improvements are a natural gas conversion hurricane shutters and more tree removal.
 
I agree with Walter. My house at some point had underground lines from the pole to the service panel. The mast is still there attached to the pole going underground, with the wires hanging out of the top. At some point it must have given out. during renovations i found pipe under ground too. Something must have happened because in the garage you can see where the service panel used to be. panel was moved to otherside of garage, and a horrible retrofit was done. If they had kept up with the trimming and made a decision to cut the power before the storm maybe some of these transformers wouldnt have blown. Unfortunately LIPA is an Authority and number one function of any Authority is to feed the machine. All else is secondary.
 
quote:
Originally posted by walterv

Mark,
I totally agree buddy!!!!!

Also, here is some food for thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In my earlier years I worked and actually built out a cable TV infrastructure in Lynbrook and Lawrence (Adams Russell) which is now CableVision. Lynbrook for the most part is a very middle class area, Lawrence on the other hand is is predominantly wealthy.Lynbrook had overhead cables, Lawrence had underground. There were way more outages in Lawrence than Lynbrook. We live on an island with a 3 to 5 foot water table on the south shore. The littlest storm would flood the vaults that held the cable tv equipment, forget about a hurricane.

My point here is this, and my point is based on real life experience on underground vs overhead cables. On the south shore of LI, underground is not the answer, not the answer by any stretch of the imagination in reality, it is far worse than overhead cables.

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