The Politics of Inconvenience

On last Wednesday,(August 15) my wife and I went to the Public Service Commission hearing regarding BGE in the Banneker Room of the George Howard Building in Ellicott City. The PSC is the body that oversees the activities of our Baltimore Gas and Electric utility company. The hearing revolved around BGE's actions, or rather, inaction during the storm that occurred on June 29, also known as "The Derecho". We attended partly because we had received an email from our county council person, Jen Terrasa, informing us about it, and partly out of morbid curiosity. I expected complaints and a little bit of "whining", and I got both. We, like most folks in Howard County, were directly affected by the Derecho. It turned out to indeed be a major inconvenience, but far less than an earth shattering event.We lost our power for three days, and like most people, we had to rid our refrigerator and freezer of food that was either spoiled, or spoiling. We also suffered some roof damage, that we are still negotiating to get repaired. Being accustomed to the sound of television or music in the house, we really couldn't take the silence, or the heat ( it was at least 90 degrees in the house at one point), so we hung out at the mall, explored Wegmans, explored the Maryland Live casino, and I had to endure a Tyler Perry movie (nothing but love for Tyler). On Monday morning, just as I was getting up to go to work, the lights suddenly came back on. Right as I was on the verge of giving up and getting a hotel room, the hum of power returned. Many Howard Countians, however, were not as fortunate. While my power was back on, almost 8000 residents remained in the dark, and would stay that way until the following Saturday. The commissioners from the PSC listened intently as citizen after citizen spoke their minds. Some with prepared statements, and some speaking directly from the gut. The common denominator was the loss of goods, and the oppressive heat. The lack of a cogent response from BGE was the overwhelming complaint. The absence of any contingency plan for future incidents was also discussed. The PSC was charged to put BGE's "feet to the fire" for not serving the customers who paid their salaries. What I did notice was  the complaints did not necessarily come from the result of one hellish storm. These folks had a long history of power outages with BGE. Some people stated that they had outages at least once ortwice per month. Some lasting for a few minutes, others lasting for days. I felt that my little inconvenience of three days without power paled compared to their issues.  They had a reason to complain or even whine if they chose to.Power outages in my area are infrequent, because most of our lines are underground. That suggestion was the other frequent reference during the hearing. Bury the lines was often brought up, as well as BGE's indiscriminately cutting of trees to prevent line damage. We did not stay until the end of the meeting (I came there directly from work, had not eaten, and I could feel my blood sugar dropping...so it was off to La Palapa), but I imagine that most of the complaints and issues were similar. I also do not know what the PSC will or can do. This meeting was of a series that the commission held in the Baltimore area. I'm not even sure what BGE can do to prevent such long outages after derechos, snowstorms or natural disasters.Will they relent, like most European countries and bury our lines, or will the excuse that it's too expensive continue to be used? Will the PSC put BGE's "feet to the fire", or will it be business as usual? Will the people be heard...or will we continue to be inconvenienced by inaction? I guess we'll see after the next storm.