I am not a lawyer, but I think there is a strong case against Pepco for liabilites caused by their lack or preparedness and response to the storm last Sunday. Certainly Pepco had no control over the storm, but they do have control over their preventative maintenance policies as well as emergency preparedness plans, or lack there of, and that may in fact be negligent.
It would take a lot of work... subpoenas for their maintenance records and historical budgeting for infrastructure upgrades versus their service pricing, as well as what policies and procedures for inspecting and maintaining equipment, the environment (pruning branches and potentially cutting down trees that pose a risk to power lines) they have in place. I'm confident their lack of emergency preparedness has cost the Pepco service area millions of dollars in a variety of ways. Besides the food, who is paying for all the overtime of the police force? Who is paying for the lost productivity and retail sales? Who is paying for the emergency response vehicles that I hear non-stop going to help people in distress?
In my opinion, their lack of a professional emergency preparedness plan for a critical component of our infrastructure is criminal and should be treated as a threat to our homeland security. It is obviously not nearly as extreme as hurricane Katrina, but think about it - a court ultimately ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers could be held liable for the shoddy work on the Pontchartrain levees, and noone has ever doubted that BP should be liable for the oil spill.
This debacle exposes the Pepco management team as a bunch of amateurs, and that makes me embarrassed to admit I live in Bethesda.
Its now 11:47, still no power. I guess I'll be making another trip out to my car to charge up my laptop battery. Doh!
I found the spokesperson for Pepco featured in this Washington Post article to be arrogant and dismissive. What do you think?
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