Power outages, whether storm-induced or not, inconvenience thousands of people, take time and labor to fix, and paralyze economic activity. The utility industry wants to get power back on as much as their customers want them to-no power means no billing for power. So what’s the problem?
Though utility industry is comprised of private companies, public commissions oversee its operation. For example, here in Washington, the D.C. Public Service Commission is charged with ensuring “safe, reliable, and quality utility services at reasonable rates.” Analysis of each utility’s pricing, maintenance of service, and response to crises is an important part of the responsibility of each commission.
After ice storms in 1999, Pepco improved its storm response capabilities at the behest of the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Number-wise, its response to Hurricane Isabel was considerably faster than its response to outages four years ago. The power companies are confident that their reaction to the storm will satisfy the scrutiny of the appropriate investigators.
But satisfaction of the regulatory commissions and satisfaction of Pepco’s customers are two different things. They may have acted faster than before, but last Friday, a week after the storm, 2,500 Pepco customers still had no power after repeatedly reporting their problems.
Pepco’s customer service during the storm was unsatisfactory at best and deplorable at worst. One of the major changes made in 1999 was the overhaul of its phone system to increase its capacity to 100,000 phone calls at once. But evidently, the ability to take more phone calls doesn’t mean improved efficiency. The complaints of many customers, including those of Georgetown students, were left unrecorded in the system. Customers had to call time after time simply to report problems Pepco should have already fixed and were responded to by employees who had little idea of how to help.
Pepco clearly understands its shortcomings; President William J. Sim has pledged his commitment to finding “a better way” to solve such problems in the future. He has hired a noted crisis management specialist to asses and improve the company’s response to Isabel and similar natural disasters.
The fact remains that Pepco’s overall response to Isabel’s aftermath was inadequate. When time comes for the proper commissions to look into its actions, more than numbers must be analyzed so that mutual satisfaction can come from the mutual goals of utility companies, notably Pepco, and their customers.
