Thousands Still Without Power in Eastern Canada

I can't afford another blackout. It's not a joke when the power goes off. Who do we ask for help?"

November 17, 2004
CNews

HALIFAX (CP) -- Nova Scotia Power estimated that 10,000 customers were still without electricity Wednesday afternoon, as crews continued to restore service three days after a major snowstorm hit the province.

The utility, a former Crown corporation that was privatized in 1992, has restored service to 95,000 customers since the snow and rain ended Sunday night.

But public anger over the company's communications skills continued to boil over on radio talk shows, in the editorial pages of local newspapers and at public hearings into the utility's application for a rate hike.

"The snow that fell last weekend was a joke for Nova Scotia," wrote Robin Carter of Dartmouth in a letter to the Halifax Daily News.

"What is going to happen when we get a real storm? We know NSP is useless. I can't afford another blackout. It's not a joke when the power goes off. Who do we ask for help?"

Howard Epstein, a Halifax-area member of the legislature, said Wednesday that it's ironic that Nova Scotia Power wants to tack an additional 14 per cent to residential customers' power bills.

"The company is asking consumers to pay a premium price, but it has demonstrated, as recently as last weekend, that it is unwilling to deliver a premium service," he said.
Epstein, the party's energy critic, questioned Nova Scotia Power officials on Wednesday at regulatory hearings by the Utility and Review Board into the rate hike application.

He also called for a public review into the utility before the rate hearings continue.

"I want to know if the towers that went down were weakened by (hurricane) Juan," he said.

"I want to know if we have all the repair crews we need. I want to know if 'critical customers,' such as those on dialysis, were helped first as they should have been."

U.S. consultant John Sherrod reported in April that low staff levels played a role in the utility's slow restoration of power after hurricane Juan last year.

Nova Scotia Power's 2,400-member workforce has dwindled significantly since it was publicly owned.

Former chief executive Louis Comeau promised "there will be no layoffs attributable to privatization" when the provincial government decided to sell the utility in 1992. But the job cuts started that October.

There were more cuts in 1993, '95 and '97, when employment levels slipped to 1,900.

On Tuesday, the company released an internal report that said its transmission system was structurally sound prior to the crippling weekend storm.

Senior executives at the utility have said the storm was comparable to the 1998 ice storm, which crippled parts of Quebec and Ontario.

But a spokesman for Environment Canada contradicted that opinion by suggesting the storm was nothing out of the ordinary.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041115/wl_canada_nm/canada_weather_snowstorm_col&cid=840&ncid=1112