The weekend storm phased out electricity for residents in central Maryland, which exacerbated frustration among some Marylanders with Baltimore gas companies.
The utility said there were huge winds on Sunday night, causing more than 100,000 interruptions, and as of Wednesday, only a few hundred recovered from Wednesday.
Some BGE customers have been bothered by the recently increased energy bills, believing that the utility's reaction to the recent weather-related blackouts has disappointed them again.
Michael Schwartzberg and Stacey Needle, a marketing communications professional who lives in Pikesville, said that due to a tree The trees removed electrical lines and their houses had no electricity on Sunday night.
Schwartzberg and Needle lived in their home for nearly 19 years, growing up with a home needle and later bought it from their mother. The couple said they had power outages throughout their period.
The telephone poles are above the ground and are already entangled with trees growing around them, Schwartzberg said. As a result, fallen branches or trees tripped over the power cord, causing the community to lose power, he said.
The couple's homes can only be accessed through one-way roads that drive out, and they say safety issues can arise when the power goes out or blocks the road.
Needle said she had spoken with BGE since 2015, involving constant power outages and overgrown trees, but felt they weren't getting enough help from the utilities.
BGE did not immediately comment on the couple's concerns. Schwartzberg and Needle said their power was restored Wednesday morning, but said the wires were still hanging loosely along the road, triggering concerns that another power outage could occur.
After the storm, NAACP’s Randallstown chapter wrote a letter to the Public Service Commission on Sunday asking the utility to investigate why so many BGE customers lost power and questioned its grid resilience.
The Public Service Commission specifies natural gas, electrical, water, telephone and sewage treatment companies in Maryland.
In the letter, Randlestown NAACP pointed out over the weekend that the BGE interruption was far more outages than those affected by Potomac Electric and Monpower’s customers.
“It's frozen today, absolutely freezing, and the emails we receive have no power,” said Ryan Coleman, president of the chapter in an interview Tuesday.
According to the organization's request for investigation, Coleman hopes for a clear solution to the problem, whether it is a need for a new tree cutting procedure or a newer equipment.
“There has to be more oversight, there has to be more transparency,” Coleman said. “I think the public should know what the reason is.”
Richard Yost, BGE's director of communications, said 1,800 people were underway for storm repair work, and 99% of the power outages were restored before 11 p.m. Tuesday.
“BGE is focused on providing value to our customers by ensuring the value of reliable and secure energy systems,” he said in an emailed statement to The Sun. “After the storm of the past weekend, we have improved our efforts with distributed automation Infrastructure, occupants and other smart grid technologies avoid over 230,000 customer disruptions. This technology prevents 1.5 million to 2 million ongoing customer disruptions each year.”
According to the BGE blackout tracker, there were 716 customers without electricity as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, while 127,000 Yost said at the end of Sunday's storm, Yost said there was no electricity. According to the blackout tracker, most of the interruptions are in Baltimore County.
Frustration with BGE has been widely circulated as residents complained about their increased energy costs, prompting Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen to introduce legislation to fight price increases, while Maryland delegates called for “unsure” Suspension dispatch pause” speed increases.
Is there any news tips? Contact Shaela Foster at sfoster@baltsun.com.
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