I am at the Library again folks, because I still do not have electricity. I would like to apologize for not being able to read your articles. I only have a limited time online at the Library.
It may be hot outside my house, but inside it’s about two degrees. I’m sick and feel like I am going to go insane any minute now. I went to my aunt’s house to shower yesterday because it is too cold in my house to shower. Did I mention we had to get rid of our food because it all went bad?
It’s now day 5 with no electricity. I am so mad I could spit (sorry for the cliches). My neighbors and I call LIPA (Long Island Power Authority) at leat 20 times a day and at night as well. We press buttons to tell them the power is still out! On the add chance I get a human to speak to (which is really rather rare), I got the following remarks:
“It’s only seven houses. I can’t understand why they bothered to dispatch anyone.”
“We aren’t giving estimated times.”
“We dispatched someone early this morning and they will be there by midnight.” (And then they never showed.)
“I don’t know why they told you midnight. We don’t give estimated times.”
The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. I understand both parties (caller and customer service representative) are frustrated and angry, but if you don’t know what to say to a customer say very politely ” I am looking at my computer, butI’m sorry sir/ma’am but we do not know what time nor day our technicians will be at your location.” I’d rather you say that, then basically tell me I don’t matter. Don’t get my hopes up by telling me lies.
Monday I got three call backs on my cell phone asking me how my restoration went. What restoration? Does it look like I have lights? If I had electricity I’d be jumping for joy. However when I received these calls, I was at Starbucks. I assumed my lights were back on and rushed home!
The day after the lights went out, a LIPA truck went up the block and disappeared into the night. This morning I was getting ready to go to the doctor and I see the LIPA truck pull up. I said “Thank G-d you are here!” To which their worker replied “I will have you up in about twenty seconds. When I came home from the doctor I thought I’d be able to get to do some work on my computer because we’d have electricity. Boy, was I wrong! I said to my neighbor-“He was here! Why do I still have no lights?”
I know we are only seven houses and there are no trees down, but there are senior citizens in most of these houses. None of us can shower in our own houses because it’s two degrees in the house. Some of us are sick. We all had to throw away heaps of food that went bad. I had to throw away a bottle of medicine that went bad–it needed to be refrigerated. I don’t know about the others but I have ‘stuff’ I was working on that’s on my computer, that I cannot currently use. Don’t get me wrong- we are all thankful to be alive and grateful that there isn’t a lot of damage out here, if any, but don’t pass us off as stupid or tell us that we do not matter. I know we are low priority, but we are people, and we have needs that have not been met. If I had places to put candles up so I can get other work done, I would, but I don’t. We have stick up LED lights…you cannot really read by them. I have flashlights too, but I’m trying not to use the batteries too much.
Five days without power is disgusting. During the East Coast blackout that happened a few years ago, we were only without power for two days, and LIPA officials were courteous. They didn’t keep leaving the scene, neither. And don’t tel lme you don’t have enough crews. I know a bulk of your attention is focused in the town of Hempstead which was brutally hit, and so your attention SHOULD be there. However, there are other areas of Long Island that were affected. This morning I saw a line of trucks of other electric companies as I was driving to the doctor. We only need one or two trucks to fix this problem. This should been fixed a day or two ago. This is just not acceptable anymore.
