LIPA Responds Quickly and Efficiently to Restore Outages During the Valentine's Winter Storm of 2007

Uniondale - The 2007 St. Valentine’s Day Winter Storm left Long Island in the deep freeze! With icy conditions and winds gusting to nearly 50MPH, the Long Island Power Authority’s (LIPA) field staff worked 16-hour shifts to restore service to customers who were affected when the high winds and ice snapped branches and toppled trees onto power lines.

From midnight Wednesday, through Thursday morning, 61,691 LIPA customers were affected by this winter weather system at various times. During that time, LIPA crews restored 61,295 customers. The balance were returned to service Thursday. The peak number of outages (21,266) occurred at 11:00 AM on Wednesday. Restoration crews worked extended shifts replacing poles, repairing power lines, removing trees from LIPA facilities, replacing fuses and resetting transformers. Due to the hard work of these dedicated men and women 91% of the outages were restored in less than four hours.

LIPA’s Customer Call Center was also very busy. The call center received 31,526 calls from customers reporting an outage or requesting an estimate of when their power would be restored. The Customer Call Center responded to 30,665 of these calls for an answer rate of 97.3%. LIPA’s Outage Callback system was also very effective. When a customer calls in an outage, if a restoration time is not yet known, they are asked if they would like a callback when a restoration time has been established. Customers can also elect to receive a callback from LIPA to confirm restoration. 11,294 customers requested a callback.

“This success is a result of a dedicated workforce and LIPA’s investment of over $2.5 billion in upgrades and improvements to Long Island’s electric system,” said LIPA CEO/President Richard M. Kessel. “We all owe a thank-you to the men and women of our restoration crews and those working in the call center and support staff, who work so hard to keep Long Island’s lights on.”

Divisions	Customers	Jobs
Queens-Nassau	2,499	53
Central	11,919	121
Western Suffolk	17,519	266
Eastern Suffolk	31,703	259

LIPA’s customers are encouraged to visit LIPA’s Storm Center on LIPA’s Web site www.lipower.org/stormcenter. LIPA’s Storm Center features updated weather reports, electric outage information and tips to stay prepared for weather emergencies.

LIPA, a non-profit municipal electric provider, owns the retail electric Transmission and Distribution System on Long Island and provides electric service to more than 1.1 million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. LIPA is the 2nd largest municipal electric utility in the nation in terms of electric revenues, 3rd largest in terms of customers served and the 7th largest in terms of electricity delivered. In 2010, LIPA outperformed all other overhead electric utilities in New York State for frequency of service interruptions, and ranked second for duration of service interruptions. LIPA does not provide natural gas service or own any on-island generating assets. More information about LIPA can be found online at: http://www.lipower.org.

Media Contact Information
Mark Gross
Phone - (516) 719-9892
Media Pager - (516) 229-7248
media.relations@lipower.org

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