A Capital 4th Despite Incompetent Verizon, PEPCO and Others
I hope that everyone had a great few hours respite from dealing with the incompetence of Verizon, PEPCO, Dominion Power and the other utilities that keep telling us that they are surprised every time we have a storm. Maybe the time has come for them to be prepared for emergencies which seem to happen more often, possibly because of climate change.fire
One idea may be to build a reserve work force like the military does. With the large number of people unemployed they could train people to take over the safer jobs and free up all their engineers and fulltime staff to deal with the emergency. Pay people for the training and a stipend regularly to agree to be on-call in an emergency. Maybe then when you call Verizon after not having internet since the last storm their employees won’t tell you they will get back to you after their July 4th vacation. VACATION! How outrageous when their subscribers still don’t have service in widespread areas.
The public service commissions in all three states, Maryland, Virginia and D.C. (yes I am calling it a state), should demand emergency plans before granting another dollar in rate increases to any utility that serves our area. The time for excuses is over. Yes I agree there are always extenuating circumstances but it seems like they happen every time we have a major storm and they are never changing their plans or their operations to deal with them.
Again I said I hope that everyone took a couple of hours to enjoy the 4th of July and to celebrate the country’s birthday. I saw people without electricity for day’s party in their back yards and listen to the concert on the Mall on devices that worked and even on battery operated radios. The concert on the Mall in Washington D.C. celebrated and honored our brave men and women who have served the nation in far off wars fighting for Democracy. Even those who live in the District and came home to no Democracy of their own. We honored our Olympians who in less than a month will be off to London to compete for Gold and to represent our nation. Apollo Ono spoke to the beautiful sentiment that when he stood on the top stand and accepted his gold medals he was representing all of us and could feel the support that the nation had given to him.
I was lucky enough to celebrate with friends in Georgetown who have a panoramic view from their roof of the fireworks displays on the mall and in Maryland and Virginia. I got to hold a four year old child who showed the wonder in her eyes and squealed when the fireworks exploded above us in all their glorious colors.
We must remember on July 4th what a great county we live in. With all its issues and the work that still needs to be done to ensure that we are really all equal with full civil and human rights, we are lucky to be living here and need to take a moment to celebrate that.